History UsefulNotes / WorldWarII

On a brighter note, the campaign finally gives a name to one of history's most eponymous improvised weapons. When the Russians started dropping cluster and incendiary bombs on Finnish towns, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov [[BlatantLies claimed they were actually dropping food - 'Bread Baskets' - for the starving Finnish proletariat]]. The Finns subsequently dub their improvised petrol bombs, of the same type used by desperate infantrymen trying to take out tanks in China and Spain, '{{Molotov Cocktail}}s'. [[DontExplainTheJoke 'Cocktails', because they're a drink to go down with the 'bread']]. Appropriately enough, a majority of them were manufactured by Finland's government-controlled liquor monopoly.

At least, this is the plan presented to the Emperor; the real plan is far more realistic, which speaks volumes. The Army is confident only in its ability to take the mid-Yangzi, linking up the railways from Beijing down to Guangzhou and capturing or rendering unsafe the forward airbases Chennault's Air Force Army is operating from in the process. Mindful of his forces' deterioration and the inevitability of Allied Victory, Jiang had been highly critical of Eisenhower's decision to give Chennault forces enough to antagonise the Japanese into making a grand offensive - at least, not without giving his troops the weapons, training, and equipment needed for them to hold such an offensive off. Chennault actually has half as many planes as the Imperial Army does in China now, a serious problem for the Empire given the huge amounts of territory and the number of strategic fire-bombing missions they have to defend. The result has been chaos in the occupied territories as Japan has neither sufficient radar installations, anti-air artillery, or planes to defend their lines of communication and supply properly. Thus, Operation Ichigo is the solution. It's worth noting that even if 'Ichigo' does succeed beyond High Command's wildest dreams, Japan will still lose the war. It's only a matter of time before the American Navy manages to blockade and maybe even launch an invasion of Japan itself, and the American air forces are only a couple of islands and a few months away from being able to launch strategic-bombing raids on the Home Islands themselves. High Command can hardly claim ignorance of the offensive's futility, as their other big project is wrangling out a defense plan for the Home Islands [[WeAreStrugglingTogether with the co-operation of the Navy]], [[TakingYouWithMe but they go ahead with it anyway]].

Ichigo is super-effective. The Guomindang's Henan salient - which has to be supplied by ox-cart, as the Japanese hold the railway network at either end of it - is eliminated in mere months, having held out for seven years. Changsha is captured, again, but the Japanese hold onto it this time as they regroup and then concentrate virtually all their artillery and armoured forces to take the Guangzhou-Changsha railroad, fanning out into the mountains to take out the Allied airbases from there. Jiang tries to get his forces recalled from Burma but Stilwell refuses, as Eisenhower has told him that Jiang doesn't need them.

Stilwell, moreover, has been trying to get Jiang to committing more troops to help out in the Allied offensive in Burma. To do so, he has been withholding lend-lease supplies for months now, such that even Chennault (with whom he has a very thorny relationship) is short on spare parts and fuel, and complains about Stilwell's conduct to Eisenhower. Worse still, when Chennault tries to use his planes to disrupt the Japanese offensive Eisenhower tells him to pull his forces back to Chongqing and reduce his operations - though Eisenhower initially didn't realise the scale of the offensive, they soon come to believe that it might mean the end of the Guomindang. Roosevelt soon looks to cut his losses in the run-up to the US Election of November 1944. Roosevelt's opponent, John Dewey, relentlessly criticises Roosevelt's conduct of the war and lambastes him for not providing Jiang with enough support. By way of response, Roosevelt allows the publication of a series of previously-censored articles which are highly critical of Jiang, the Guomindang, and their forces. If China loses, Roosevelt says, it will be their own fault - and Eisenhower will ensure the USA's losses will have been minimal. Jiang, accordingly, is absolutely furious but has to bite his tongue, insisting only on the resumption of lend-lease deliveries and the dismissal of Stilwell.

This is more-or-less exactly what they do, giving the Guomindang only a fraction of the aid they give Britain or the Soviets[[hottip:*: Stalin, admittedly, ''needs'' to be 'bribed' so that he can be kept on-side. The Cairo Conference was the only meeting of the Allied leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt) that Chiang attended - Stalin was very coy about his attendance and refused to come if Jiang was present, officially because he didn't want to offend Japan.]] and turning down Jiang's calls for American troops. Moreover, the Lend-Lease supplies they 'do' send to Jiang are largely consumed by their own forces. Stilwell's on-loan Guomindang divisions (in India) get most of the army equipment meant for the Guomindang at large, and Claire Chennault's Far Eastern USAF group get much of what does make it to China proper. The US does, however, give the Guomindang enough money in the form of loans to keep their government ticking over - for a while. After four years of cripplingly expensive total war, the Guomindang has been forced to decentralise its administration and tax-collection regional and local level, arbitrarily conscript peasants, and print money in order to survive. The loans help stave off the Guomindang's imminent implosion, but it isn't enough to allow them to reform and recentralise. Consequently, the Guomindang's administrative and fighting efficiency continues to slowly but inexorably deteriorate.

This is more-or-less exactly what they do, giving the Guomindang only a fraction of the aid they give Britain or the Soviets[[hottip:*: Stalin, admittedly, ''needs'' to be 'bribed' so that he can be kept on-side. The Cairo Conference was the only meeting of the Allied leaders (Churchill, Roosevelt) that Chiang attended - Stalin was very coy about doing so and outright refused to attend alongside Chiang, officially because he didn't want to offend Japan.]] turning down Jiang's calls for American troops and technically fulfilling its Lend-Lease obligations by shipping supplies to him which are largely consumed by their own forces. Stilwell's on-loan Guomindang divisions (in India) get most of the army equipment meant for the Guomindang at large, and The Flying Tigers and Claire Chennault's Far Eastern USAF group get much of what does make it to China proper. The US does, however, give the Guomindang enough money in the form of loans to keep ticking over - for a while. After four years of cripplingly expensive total war, the Guomindang has been forced to decentralise its administration and tax-collection regional and local level, arbitrarily conscript peasants, and print money in order to survive. US aid doesn't change any of this, but it does stop them imploding - for now.

To raise morale, and curb spying, the US promptly herds all ethnic-Japanese living on the west coast into internment camps and expropriates all their assets.[[hottip:*: Except Hawaii, of course, where ethic Japanese make up a majority of the non-native population.]] The US does, however, allow Japanese-Americans to serve with its armed forces - but only in the European theatre, except for some who serve in non-combat roles as translators. Roosevelt is keen to capitalise on the strength of the American people's anti-Japanese hatred, so he gets Chief-of-Staff George Marshall to assign the US Army to help the Guomindang in their fight against the Imperial Japanese Army. Somewhat cynically, Marshall appoints the newly-promoted General Stilwell to head up the US Army's Expeditionary Force to China but doesn't actually give him any men. From the USA's standpoint, it makes no sense to give the Guomindang any more support than necessary for their ally to survive in their role as meatshield - and this is exactly what they do, turning down Jiang's calls for American troops and technically fulfilling its Lend-Lease obligations by shipping supplies to him which are largely consumed by their own forces - Stilwell's on-loan Guomindang divisions (in India) get most of the army equipment meant for the Guomindang at large, and The Flying Tigers and Claire Chennault's Far Eastern USAF group get much of what does make it to China proper.

Ichigo is super-effective. The Guomindang's Henan salient - which has to be supplied by ox-cart, as the Japanese hold the railway network at either end of it - is eliminated in mere months, having held out for seven years. Changsha is captured, again, but the Japanese hold onto it this time as they regroup and then concentrate virtually all their artillery and armoured forces to take the Guangzhou-Wuhan railroad, fanning out into the mountains to take out the Allied airbases from there. The Guomindang, horribly equipped and poorly led, is hopelessly outmatched and essentially refuses battle. China is for all intents and purposes knocked out of the war, as Chiang and Mao Tse-Tung conserve their forces in preparation for the civil war that is certain to resume when the war ends.

'Operation Ichigo' is a success, sort of. The Empire has its Beijing-Guangzhou rail line and most of the Allied airfields in China have been captured or abandoned, for all the good that does them. The advances into the Chongqing Basin and British India haven't materialised, though, and the IJA doesn't have the strength or the supplies to do anything but hold its positions. The offensive has not been an unmitigated disaster for Jiang - he has a reliable supply of lend-lease material now and even though his loyal forces have taken a mauling, several regional warlord 'allies' have taken critical losses. Much of their authority has been sapped or dissipated to warlords at the local level. A lot of this is due to Jiang's politicking - at the same time the USA was holding back lend-lease material from Jiang, Jiang himself was refusing to send ammunition or aid to his 'allies' on the front lines. A doomed-to-failure offensive directed at capturing Chongqing is launched by a faction of rogue Japanese generals. It not only fails, but goes on to backfire spectacularly as the Guomindang's opportunistic counter-attacks turns into a counter-''offensive'', precipitated by success upon success at the tactical level, that actually forces the Japanese to retreat and abandon their precious Wuhan-Guangzhou railroad. Not at all coincidentally, the Burmese front is also moving again after years of stalemate. The long-planned Sino-Anglo-Indian offensive, something Jiang and the British have been meaning to get around to for years now, gets off to a shaky start as organisational issues come to a head, but after their victory at Imphal the Allies begin a steady advance through Burma and into Japanese-allied Thailand.

* AmericaWinsTheWar: To this day, many in the Anglosphere and western Europe do not appreciate the extent to which the war in Europe was mainly fought and mostly decided on the Eastern Front. It is true, however, that Allied victory would have been impossible without the USA's financial and industrial support [[hottip:*: America was the ''Queen'' of military production during the war; only the USSR gave her a run for her money in even a handful of categories]], and that the Americans led the charge on the Western Front. By the time of the Battle of the Bulge, they outnumbered the British and Canadians almost three to one - but upon German surrender, the Soviets had the Allies' forces on the mainland outnumbered by more than three-to-one.

- ''Also the [[NoMoreEmperors Chinese Civil War]], [[RedOctober Russian Civil War]], SpanishCivilWar, and SecondSinoJapaneseWar''

To raise morale, and curb spying, the US promptly herds all ethnic-Japanese living on the west coast into internment camps and expropriates all their assets.[[hottip:*: Except Hawaii, of course, where ethic Japanese make up a majority of the non-native population.]] The US does, however, allow Japanese-Americans to serve with its armed forces - but only in the European theatre, except for some who serve in non-combat roles as translators. Roosevelt is keen to capitalise on the strength of the American people's anti-Japanese hatred, so he gets Chief-of-Staff Eisenhower to assign the US Army to help the Guomindang in their fight against the Imperial Japanese Army. Somewhat cynically, Eisenhower appoints the newly-promoted General Stilwell to head up the US Army's Expeditionary Force to China but doesn't actually give him any men. From the USA's standpoint, it makes no sense to give the Guomindang any more support than necessary for their ally to survive in their role as meatshield - and this is exactly what they do, turning down Jiang's calls for American troops and technically fulfilling its Lend-Lease obligations by shipping supplies to him which are largely consumed by their own forces - Stilwell's on-loan Guomindang divisions (in India) get most of the army equipment meant for the Guomindang at large, and The Flying Tigers and Claire Chennault's Far Eastern USAF group get much of what does make it to China proper.

Ichigo is super-effective. The Guomindang's Henan salient - which has to be supplied by ox-cart, as the Japanese hold the railway network at either end of it - is eliminated in mere months, having held out for seven years. Changsha is captured, again, but the Japanese hold onto it this time as they regroup and then concentrate virtually all their artillery and armoured forces to take the Guangzhou-Wuhan railroad, fanning out into the mountains to take out the Allied airbases from there. Jiang tries to get his forces recalled from Burma but Stilwell refuses, as Eisenhower has told him that Jiang doesn't need them. Indeed, the Guomindang hasn't received any lend-lease material for months now as Chennault has been taking 'all' of the cargo space on the Himalayan runs for his forces' own needs. Worse still, when Chennault tries to use his planes to disrupt the Japanese offensive Eisenhower tells him to pull his forces back to Chongqing and reduce his operations - though Eisenhower and Roosevelt initially didn't realise the scale of the offensive, they soon come to believe that it might mean the end of the Guomindang and prepare to cut their losses in the run-up to the US Election of November 1944. Roosevelt's opponent, John Dewey, relentlessly criticises Roosevelt's conduct of the war and lambastes him for not providing Jiang with enough support. By way of response, Roosevelt allows the publication of a series of previously-censored articles which are highly critical of Jiang, the Guomindang, and their forces. If China loses, Roosevelt says, it will be their own fault - and Eisenhower will ensure the USA's losses will have been minimal. Jiang, accordingly, is absolutely furious but has to bite his tongue, insisting only on the resumption of lend-lease deliveries and the dismissal of Stilwell.

The monetary cost of the war is literally incalculable; while Russia dodged its bill entirely by becoming a whole new country, the average cost to European human capital was about 6%, domestic assets about 11% and national wealth some 10-20%. Furthermore, the conclusion of the war and the creation of so many new states along national lines resulted in Europe spending most of its time grappling with great political unrest instead of addressing the fundamental structural economic problems which underpinned much of said unrest. Almost overnight, Europe went from a handful of currencies with fixed exchange rates to over a dozen currencies with variable exchange rates. Where there had been a handful of tariff barriers and taxation systems before, now there were dozens. Germany, whose economic power would have, together with France and Britain, been required to 'save' Europe from itself, was deliberately weakened and saddled with war-reparations debts. London had managed the world's prewar banking; now, the situation was too complex and London too weak for it to exert any real control, and New York refused to step up to the plate and take charge of the situation. Furthermore, the war had disrupted the natural trade cycles of Europe, and the re-gearing towards peacetime industries resulted in mass unemployment, giving impetus to various movements through much of Europe.

The Imperial Army's advances into Burma showcase some serious issues with the tentative Sino-British-American alliance. For one thing, Stilwell immediately tries to use his on-loan Guomindang divisions to drive back the Japanese offensive by way of a counter-attack. Even though his Guomindang forces are outnumbered three-to-one, have no air-cover or air-support, have no artillery, lack communication equipment, and are not supported by their British allies (who think it's a spectacularly stupid idea). It fails, and Jiang goes over Stilwell's head to order his encircled forces to make a break-out and retreat. The Japanese advance soon cuts the Burma road, China's sole remaining transport link to the rest of the Allied-aligned world. Its loss forces the Americans to fly everything from Bazookas to bandages over 'the Hump' of the Himalayas in order to meet their Lend-lease commitments. As Guomindang troops and the Sepoys of the British Indian Army bring the offensive to a halt in the Himalayan foothills, [[MahatmaGandhi Gandhi and the Indian National Congress]] declare the start of the Quit India movement - [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which advocates Britain's immediate withdrawal from India]] to make room for Indian Independence. Gandhi and the Congress are promptly imprisoned for the duration of the war, and acts of open rebellion and sabotage are quite brutally suppressed. However, Jinnah and the Indian Muslim League declare their loyalty to the British Raj and give the war effort their full support - their proposal of an independent or autonomous Indian-Muslim State being taken seriously as a consequence.

** One of the biggest partisan movements was on the Eastern Front that consisted of soldiers that escaped being surrounded, but couldn't rejoin their army, and eager civilians. Partisans were supported, where able, with paradropped supplies and reinforcements, and eventually was organized as another branch of army, with it's own command. They're especially famous for their work in disabling railroads and for their role in 'Operation Bagration', where they disabled all the roads before the attack began, isolating the German troops in Belarus.
** Yugoslavia and Greece had particularly strong movements, with the Yugoslavians being biggest of the various resistance movements: they managed to significantly weaken the Nazis' hold on their country and even free parts of it. Granted, this was when the Nazis' strength was waning, but a great accomplishment nonetheless.
* LastStand: Many of them. Whole Ghetto Uprising and Warsaw Uprising in Poland were this from the start.

* YouWillBeSpared: This trope most likely lay at the heart of the cynical German-Japanese military alliance from at least the Nazis' perspective (but possibly the Japanese as well). A paranoid, virulently racist, white supremacist country decides to team up against other enemies with a nation they probably deem subhuman when it gets down to it. [

But to everyone's increasing exasperation, Japan fights on. The Americans continue to island-hop closer to their 'Home Islands', capturing the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa to aid the strategic bombing campaign and planned invasion. The civilian population of the former island was evacuated courtesy of the 'American Sympathiser' General Kuribayashi, who'd been assigned the command so that he would die. Okinawa, however, was part of the Home Islands proper[[hottip:*: the Ryukyu islands were annexed less than a century previously, arguably being Japan's first overseas colony (after Ezo/Hokkaido, which was then and is now generally accepted as part of the 'Home Islands')]] and the fighting there was marked by more [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled government-]][[FateWorseThanDeath sponsored]] [[DrivenToSuicide suicides]] - supposedly to avoid the kind of treatment that Chinese civilians might expect from Japanese troops, but actually because High Command didn't want the USA to score a propaganda victory by using well-treated civilians to prove their decency to non-combatants (which could erode their soldiers' will to fight).

But to everyone's increasing exasperation, Japan fights on. The Americans continue to island-hop closer to their 'Home Islands', capturing the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa to aid the strategic bombing campaign and planned invasion. The civilian population of the former island was evacuated courtesy of the 'American Sympathiser' General Kuribayashi, who'd been assigned the command so that he would die. Okinawa, however, was part of the Home Islands proper[[hottip:*: the Ryukyu islands were annexed less than a century previously, arguably being Japan's first overseas colony (after Ezo/Hokkaido, which was then and is now generally accepted as part of the 'Home Islands')]] and the fighting there was marked by more [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled government-]][[FateWorseThanDeath sponsored]] [[DrivenToSuicide suicides]] - supposedly to avoid the kind of treatment that Chinese civilians might expect from Japanese troops, but actually because High Command didn't want the USA to score a propaganda victory by using well-treated civilians to prove their decency to non-combatants (which could their soldiers' will to fight). The fighting is savage and horrific, bloody and slow, and sees the first use of the terrifying ''Tokko'' [[hottip:*: Short for 'tokubetsu kogeki', literally 'special attack'. The use of such an innocuous, euphemistic term for a SuicideAttack was done to avoid alarming the Emperor or the general populace]] or 'Kamikaze' attacks, which amaze and horrify the Allies at just how far the Japanese are willing to go in their country's defence. The sinking of almost all of food-importing Japan's merchant fleet and the impact of air-raids on agriculture - it's hard to plow a rice paddy when it's full of shrapnel - is [[FromBadToWorse compounded by domestic crop failures]]. His majesty's subjects are now trying to survive on 1200 calories a day. [[SarcasmMode It's not all bad, though]], as the government publishes a helpful series of articles on how to stave off hunger by padding out one's diet with sawdust, insects and mice. Not everyone is this desperate, though; the general figure conceals some very stark regional contrasts. Many areas, particularly in the countryside, see people eating only a few hundred calories under their daily 2000. But others, especially in the now-devastated urban centers, see dearth[[hottip:*: i.e. not just 'not much food' or 'some, but it's mice and sawdust-bread again' - but nothing. Zero edible material]]. Urban depopulation results as people move to the countryside in the hundreds of thousands. By early 1945, Allied air and naval forces roam Japanese shores and skies virtually at will, shooting up or sinking just about everything that dares to move in daylight. But the Japanese still refuse to give up.

In the Pacific, the Americans capture the island of Saipan after a terrible land and sea battle. The Japanese defense 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 [[CurbStompBattle 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 (mostly due to running out of fuel) in their own counter-strike, but manage to sink one Japanese carrier and seriously damage three others. Adding injury to further injury, two more Japanese carriers go down at the hands of US submarines, though the loss of their carriers matters little by this point 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 [[hottip:*: the Ryukyu islands were annexed less than a century previously, arguably being Japan's first overseas colony (after Ezo/Hokkaido, which was then and is now generally accepted as part of the 'Home Islands')]] most of whom [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]], horrifying all observers.

But to everyone's increasing exasperation, Japan fights on. The Americans continue to island-hop closer to their 'Home Islands', capturing the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa to aid the strategic bombing campaign and planned invasion. The fighting is savage and horrific, bloody and slow, and sees the first use of the terrifying ''Tokko'' [[hottip:*: Short for 'tokubetsu kogeki', literally 'special attack'. The use of such an innocuous, euphemistic term for a SuicideAttack was done to avoid alarming the Emperor or the general populace]] or 'Kamikaze' attacks, which amaze and horrify the Allies at just how far the Japanese are willing to go in their country's defence. The sinking of almost all of food-importing Japan's merchant fleet and the impact of air-raids on agriculture - it's hard to plow a rice paddy when it's full of shrapnel - is [[FromBadToWorse compounded by domestic crop failures]]. His majesty's subjects are now trying to survive on 1200 calories a day. [[SarcasmMode It's not all bad, though]], as the government publishes a helpful series of articles on how to stave off hunger by padding out one's diet with sawdust, insects and mice. Not everyone is this desperate, though; the general figure conceals some very stark regional contrasts. Many areas, particularly in the countryside, see people eating only a few hundred calories under their daily 2000. But others, especially in the now-devastated urban centers, see dearth[[hottip:*: i.e. not just 'not much food' or 'some, but it's mice and sawdust-bread again' - but nothing. Zero edible material]]. Urban depopulation results as people move to the countryside in the hundreds of thousands. By early 1945, Allied air and naval forces roam Japanese shores and skies virtually at will, shooting up or sinking just about everything that dares to move in daylight. But the Japanese still refuse to give up.

This time, however, the Cabinet is willing to listen; the fleet's oil supplies will be depleted within a matter of months and it's not like the Navy and its attached ground forces - the Special Naval Landing Forces - have been making a huge contribution to the China theatre anyway. Taking on the Dutch means taking on their ally Britain. However, Britain and the USA have numerous mutual business and territorial interests in China, such as the British-American Tobacco company and the (joint-sovereignty) International Settlement at Shanghai. The Navy and the Cabinet know all too well that an imperial power like the USA would ''never'' pass up the chance to use Japan's meddling with the USA's affairs, however indirectly, [[SpanishAmericanWar to declare war on them and make them a colony like the Philippines.]] However, if they strike ''first'', they may just be able to make it difficult enough for the USA to win that the Americans will not bother to go to the enormous expense of fighting a protracted war with them. After all, the USA is a sensible power like Imperial Russia - whom they had 'bested' in just this way. When their government sees the size of the bill their navy will present them with, in order to win a war they don't really care for, they will balk at it and negotiate for peace instead. And if it's going to work, it must be done before the US Navy becomes too big to defeat.

[[folder: Fall of Poland, Inaction and Blitzkrieg, AKA ''Germany does far too well for everyone else's liking'']]

On September 1, 1939, World War II begins with the Nazi invasion of Poland, preceded by a series of {{False Flag Operation}}s[[note]]most notably the Gleiwitz incident, where German troops dress up as Poles and attack a German radio station near their shared border[[/note]]. Britain and France declare war on Germany, beginning the Western Front, but they don't actually do anything to help beyond imposing a blockade and the latter initiating a limited offensive into the Saar region. Poland's odds get that much grimmer as the Soviet Union invades from the east to make good on their part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Poland's regular forces are [[CurbStompBattle crushed in just five weeks]], having dealt far less casualties than anyone had anticipated on account of their overwhelming material and organisational disadvantage. That said, neither the Germans nor the Soviets manage to round up all of the now-former country's military personnel, and these living loose ends will cause trouble later. Some, like the Polish air force - many former pilots of which join the Royal Air Force - flee the country and fight alongside the Allies, and others form [[LaResistance resistance groups]] and await the time to strike. The Soviet Union follows up its acquisition with the quiet annexation of the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Next comes a weird eight-month pause variously nicknamed the 'Phony War', the 'Sitzkrieg' (Sitting War), or the 'Bore War' (a pun on the [[SecondBoerWar Boer War]]), in which the British and French mobilise all their industries and quietly churn out all the armaments they can, mobilising and organising all their reserves for a defence of the Low Countries, while they sit behind their naval blockade and the UsefulNotes/MaginotLine. Germany does much the same in this period, but unbeknownst to the Allies the blockade strategy is near-totally ineffective - the Allies were right to assume that Germany had been largely unprepared for a war with them, and that their strategic-resource stockpiles were very small. However, the Soviet Union is trading with Germany as per the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and so numerous types of {{Unobtanium}} like tungsten and gasoline are freely available to them. A brief spurt of excitement comes when Scandinavia gets involved - the Allies were [[GunboatDiplomacy considering getting involved there]] to stop Sweden supplying Germany with high-quality steel (a trade which was drastically less important than it appeared, as Germany was also able to get steel from the Soviets), but the Germans see this coming and attack Denmark and Norway to preempt them. While an Allied force (originally destined for Finland) manages to take the important Norwegian port of Narvik (through which Swedish iron ore is sent to Germany), they are in no position to hold it and are ordered to withdraw to France for a more important battle.

[[folder: Operation Barbarossa, aka ''Germany does far too well... or does it?'']]

Franco's nationalists will eventually triumph, with Axis support as the decisive factor in their victory. Those international volunteers and 'volunteers' left return home, the latter amid much fanfare. Many see the war as having been a proxy conflict fought between the forces of Fascism, and everyone else - one that may well testify to the future of the latter. The French in particular are stung by the apparent proof that the citizen-militias of democracy were no match for The Forces of Fascism, and Hitler thinks he sees his belief in the Allies' apathy, decadence and cowardice vindicated. The Allies' worries about Generalissimo Franco and his New Spain are unfounded, however; unlike his dictatorial benefactors, he is a man with a realistic assessment of his country's economic and military strength - i.e. not much - and no real thirst for conquest, or vengeance.

Nevertheless, many Germans considered the treaty an unforgivable national humiliation and continued to believe that Germany could have won the war, or at least could have avoided making such concessions had it been settled by soldiers on the battlefield and not the politicians. A "stab in the back" myth of betrayal grew up around the treaty of Versailles, centered on the incompetence and gutlessness of the German leadership, the betrayal of the German Socialists in abandoning all claims of international workers solidarity to support the government's unwanted war, the Liberals and Democrats for screwing up the economy in the post-war period, and Satan and The Jews because... well, just because. Anything and anyone to justify the "real" cause of their defeat and avoid the conclusion that apparently, against all logic, Germany had been bested, something that did not sit well with the Nationalist and Social Darwinist theories popular at the time.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the United States, still isolationist but not wanting a repeat of the conditions that pulled them into WorldWarOne, declares a state of "armed neutrality" and a resolution to defend neutral shipping on their side of the pond, which effectively results in a state of undeclared war between the U.S. Navy and the German Kreigsmarine. Deeply disturbing for the Imperial Japanese Navy is the announcement of a huge naval construction program to make that defence possible - the "Two Ocean Navy" act of 1940 would see it dwarf even the Royal Navy within ten years [[hottip:*: the official schedule is six years, but no-one thinks it'll get done on-time without a (massive) budget increase]]. This comes as a tremendous shock to the Japanese, who had long chafed under the hated 5-5-3 battleship ratio: the Two Ocean Navy act effectively set the new ratio at ''five to one'', with similar increases in other classes of warships and 10,000 additional aircraft; in all their fulminations against the hated treaties[[hottip:*: Which they'd been ignoring for years, anyway. Although Italy and Germany both circumvented the restrictions on their warships' weight and size by measures like welding instead of riveting, and 'weighing' their ships when they were only half-completed, the Japanese just lied outright]] they'd never considered that they also served as a check on ''American'' behavior.

This rearming also allows the US an opportunity to "loan" 50 aging but still serviceable destroyers to the UK, in return for long-term leases on naval bases, a sale in all but name. The "loaning" continued with the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, which throws the government's support behind the production of massive quantities of armaments for sale to the embattled European powers. This isn't just mere war-profiteering though, [[WarOf1812 like that one time]] - this offer is open to the Allies only, and Great Britain in particular. It features decent prices and jaw-droppingly huge low- (and some ''no-'') interest loans so that the Allies can actually afford to keep fighting, and more importantly to buy the USA's armaments.[[hottip:*:The UK, recipient of most of these, paid off the last of their lend-lease loans in 2006. From 1941 onwards the Soviets only ever received aid-in-kind, and the Republic of China (now just 'Taiwan') hasn't paid its (tiny, compared to the UK's) debts since its defeat in the civil war.]] Taken together, these measures mean that the United States' neutrality is now a mere pretense.

* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: The TropeMaker in the world's consciousness. The actual truth behind the trope is more complex. 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 (Pétain) 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 colonial 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 by their [[GeneralFailure generals]] and were not extensively equipped with modern means of communication. Their Alpine troops held the Italians off until the armistice, 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 all French and the Free French Forces led by General Charles De Gaulle kept fighting throughout the whole war. Battles such as Bir Hakeim, Monte Cassino or Ouistreham (on the D-Day) come to mind. The [[LaResistance French Resistance's]] actions count as well.

* LesCollabrateurs: The government of Vichy is the TropeNamer.

* ColdSniper: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 Simo Häyhä]]. [[MeaningfulName Nicknamed White Death]]. Highest death count for sniper '''ever'''. In ''three months''

* GlamorousWartimeSinger: The song "Lili Marleen" stands out. Lale Andersen sang it first, on the German radio set in Belgrade. The song proved to be extremely popular among both the Germans and the Western Allies, to the point of being called "the theme song of the entire war". Marlene Dietrich famously reprised it.

When the Germans do declare war on Belgium on May 10, 1940, the Allies are ready for them. The Allies have an advantage in numbers of troops, artillery and tanks, and though the Royal Air Force and Armée de l'Air have less bombers than the Luftwaffe, they have more fighters. Almost all their troops have modern weapons with sufficient ammunition and the training to use them properly - France has had conscription for years, meaning that virtually all of the troops in their army have completed at least a year or two of military training. The Wehrmacht, on the other hand, is largely inexperienced and ill-equipped, though the veterans of the 'Condor Legion' have disseminated their experiences from the SpanishCivilWar, and they have also been blooded in the Invasion of Poland. The Allies' forces also have far more horses, and more 'motorised' troops (infantry units that use trucks to get around). Few Allied troops or commanders have seen actual combat, though, and the bulk of France's troops are trained to man static positions, rather than engage in mobile warfare. Many of the deployed French units are also second-line reserves, lacking the equipment of their regular forces.

[[folder: Blitzkrieg, AKA ''Germany does far too well for everyone else's liking'']]

On September 1, 1939, World War II begins with the Nazi invasion of Poland. Britain and France declare war on Germany, beginning the Western Front, but they don't actually do anything to help beyond imposing a blockade. Poland's odds get that much grimmer as the Soviet Union invades from the east to make good on their part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Poland's regular forces are [[CurbStompBattle crushed in just five weeks]], having dealt far less casualties than anyone had anticipated on account of their overwhelming material and organisational disadvantage. That said, neither the Germans nor the Soviets manage to round up all of the now-former country's military personnel, and these living loose ends will cause trouble later. Some, like the Polish air force - many former pilots of which join the Royal Air Force - flee the country and fight alongside the Allies, and others form resistance groups and await the time to strike. The Soviet Union follows up its acquisition with the quiet annexation of the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Next comes a weird eight-month pause variously nicknamed the 'Phony War', the 'Sitzkrieg' (Sitting War), or the 'Bore War' (a pun on the [[SecondBoerWar Boer War]]), in which the British and French mobilise all their industries and quietly churn out all the armaments they can, mobilising and organising all their reserves for a defence of the low countries, while they sit behind their naval blockade and the Maginot Line. Germany does much the same in this period, but unbeknownst to the Allies the blockade strategy is near-totally ineffective - the Allies were right to assume that Germany had been largely unprepared for a war with them, and that their strategic-resource stockpiles were very small. However, the Soviet Union is trading with Germany as per the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and so numerous types of {{Unobtanium}} like Tungsten and Petrol are freely available to them. A brief spurt of excitement comes when Scandinavia gets involved - the Allies were [[GunboatDiplomacy considering getting involved there]] to stop Sweden supplying Germany with high-quality steel (a trade which was drastically less important than it appeared, as Germany was also able to get steel from the Soviets), but the Germans see this coming and attack Denmark and Norway to preempt them. While an Allied force (originally destined for Finland) manages to take the important Norwegian port of Narvik (through which Swedish iron ore is sent to Germany), they are in no position to hold it and are ordered to withdraw to France for a more important battle.

When the Germans do declare war on Belgium on May 10, 1940, the Allies are ready for them. The Allies have an advantage in numbers of troops, artillery, and tanks, and though the Royal and French air-forces have less bombers than the Luftwaffe they have more fighters. Almost all their troops have modern weapons, sufficient ammunition for them, and the training to use them properly - France has had conscription for years, meaning that virtually all of the million-plus men in their army have completed at least a year or two of military training. The Wehrmacht, on the other hand, was only allowed 100 000 personnel under the treaty of Versailles and the present-day million-man German army is largely inexperienced and ill-equipped. The Allies' forces also have far more horses, and more 'motorised' troops (infantry units that use trucks to get around). Few troops or commanders on either side have seen combat, though.

French High Command, wisely, decides that this time the Allies will hold the line in Belgium - at a series of major rivers - and make good on their industrial-commercial advantage by building up their forces even more before (when the Germans are virtually out of fuel because of the blockade) pushing the Germans back across the border. They haven't, however, ironed out the details. Politicking within High Command (careers and reputations were at stake when the Allies' plans were devised) meant that only one plan (holding the line in Belgium, building up their forces) was fleshed-out in detail. Even so, it's a good idea (despite the whole 'blockade not actually working' thing). German High Command is all too aware of their forces' inadequacies, and how the Allies' advantages will only increase with time - not to mention, they are very conscious of just how untenable their unholy alliance with Stalin and the Soviets is in the long term. With all this in mind, Hitler has chosen to launch an offensive against the Allies through Belgium. Germany's small and out-classed force of panzers and motorised units will use speed, and radios, to make a tiny opening in the Allied front and force their way through it so they can wreak havoc behind the French lines - and the rest of the German army will follow, on foot, to encircle ''half'' the entire French Army in one fell swoop! By attacking where they least expect it! Those of Hitler's Generals [[WorldWarOne who have actually seen combat]] realise that this is ''monumentally'' stupid. France's reserves will stop the Wehrmacht's panzer forces dead in their tracks or worse, lure them into a huge trap and destroy them at their leisure. The only thing stopping the French Army's massive, albeit non-motorised, regular forces from doing much the same would be speed. And no modern army could survive for long with such constricted lines of supply.

But, fool's mission though it should have been, it ''works''. This a result of the way France has designed, organised, and deployed her forces in general terms and with regards to the plan they are implementing (moving into Belgium to defend it with a few solid lines of defence). The French forces engaged there have held far too few units back as a strategic reserve, which would be fine if they were facing an enemy offensive on a (relatively) broad front - but not one that so insanely narrow and concentrated. The way France has tailored her forces is also troublesome - France has more tanks than Germany, but very few dedicated tank units. France's large number of well-armoured tanks are dispersed throughout their regular infantry divisions and move at speeds to match, all part of their strategy of defending and advancing on broad fronts. The French army also has too little communications equipment and too few personnel to match - meaning that it takes French officers (much/critically) longer than their German counterparts to receive, pass on, and implement new information and new orders. This is at least partly because the Ministry of Defence hadn't seen the need for spending large sums on things like radios and switchboard operators, when machine guns and riflemen were seen as more important (and were easier to justify to a government keen to cut defence expenditure in the middle of The Great Depression). But perhaps more importantly, the French don't have a plan to counter the German one and have a very hard time improvising a solution. Politicking has led to a critical failure of strategic planning - a failure to devise contingency plans for the overall 'Battle of France' - and not-universally-competent leadership lower down the chain of command means that its harder than it should be for France's forces to respond on-the-fly. Essentially, German planning and organisation has France's factious, pre-ponderous brawn outmatched.

What happens is that, as planned, ''all'' Germany's mobile forces lead a rush through the Ardennes Forest (the French thought it impossible to get ''that many'' tanks through and adequately-supplied over such poor terrain with such little trace, and it ''was'' admittedly difficult) and make a mad, frenzied dash to the English Channel before the French reserves or regular forces can catch up with them in detail, with as many regular (and battle-ready) troops as Germany can spare following in their wake. France's commanders are too slow to react, and a 'very' large portion of the French Army (plus the Belgian Army and British Expeditionary Force) is cut off in Belgium with very little supplies (the idea had been that they would move up to establish a forward perimeter first, and their supplies would follow). Hitler orders his panzers to stop short of totally destroying the BEF, believing he can cut a deal with Britain, allowing the BEF to evacuate and avoid capture (the 'miracle of Dunkirk'). The triumphant German army then turns north and crushes - or forces the surrender - of what pockets remain of the entrapped French Army. In no time at all, seemingly, they've solved their supply problems by linking up their forces and continue to overrun what badly-outnumbered and increasingly isolated French forces to the south. [[CurbStompCushion The whole campaign only takes about six weeks, but the Germans take heavy casualties in the process]] - much as you'd expect, given the (much) poorer combat-efficiency of their (much) better-coordinated and -applied forces. As France collapses, BenitoMussolini decides to imitate his buddy Hitler and attack France too. The Italian army does ''badly'' despite ''greatly'' outnumbering the French, [[StopHelpingMe a sign of things to come for Germany's worse-than-useless ally.]] Nevertheless, after the dust settles, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France have all fallen to the Axis Powers.

French High Command, wisely, decides that this time the Allies will hold the line in Belgium - at a series of major rivers - and make good on their industrial-commercial advantage by building up their forces even more before (when the Germans are virtually out of fuel because of the blockade) pushing the Germans back across the border. They haven't, however, ironed out the details. Politicking within High Command (careers and reputations were at stake when the Allies' plans were devised) meant that only one plan (holding the line in Belgium, building up their forces) fleshed-out in detail. Even so, it's a good idea (despite the whole 'blockade not actually working' thing). German High Command is all too aware of their forces' inadequacies, and how the Allies' advantages will only increase with time - not to mention, they are very conscious of just how untenable their unholy alliance with Stalin and the Soviets is in the long term. With all this in mind, Hitler has chosen to launch an offensive against the Allies through Belgium. Germany's small and out-classed force of panzers and motorised units will use speed, and radios, to make a tiny opening in the Allied front and force their way through it so they can wreak havoc behind the French lines - and the rest of the German army will follow, on foot, to encircle ''half'' the entire French Army in one fell swoop! By attacking where they least expect it! Those of Hitler's Generals [[WorldWarOne who have actually seen combat]] realise that this is ''monumentally'' stupid. France's reserves will stop the Wehrmacht's panzer forces dead in their tracks or worse, lure them in to a huge trap and destroy them at their leisure. The only thing stopping the French army's massive, albeit non-motorised, regular forces from doing much the same would be speed. And no modern army could survive for long with such constricted lines of supply.

But, fool's mission though it should have been, it ''works''. This a result of the way France has equipped and organised her forces, both in general terms and for the specific manoeuvre they are in the middle of implementing (moving into Belgium to defend it with a few solid lines of defence). The French forces engaged there have held very few troops in reserve, which is a problem. The composition of France's forces is also problematic - France has more tanks than Germany, but very few dedicated tank units. France's large number of well-armoured tanks are dispersed throughout their regular infantry divisions and move at speeds to match. The French army has also has too little communications equipment and too few personnel to match - meaning that it takes French officers (much) longer than it should to receive, pass on, and implement new information and new orders. This is at least partly because the Ministry of Defence hadn't seen the need for spending large sums on things like radios and switchboard operators, when machine guns and riflemen were seen as more important (and were easier to justify to a government keen to cut defence expenditure in the middle of The Great Depression). But perhaps more importantly, the French don't have a plan to counter the German one and have a very hard time improvising a solution. Politicking has led to a critical failure of strategic planning - a failure to devise contingency plans for the overall 'Battle of France' - and not-universally-competent leadership lower down the chain of command means that its harder than it should be for France's forces to respond on-the-fly. Essentially, German planning and organisation appears to have France's factious, pre-ponderous brawn outmatched.

!!Works set in this time period are:

[[folder:Anime]]
* ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia,'' obviously, although it spans from the Roman Empire to the present day.
* ''Manga/BarefootGen'' - about the Hiroshima bombing
* ''Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies'' - death of a Japanese boy and his younger sister from starvation towards the end of the war. (No, that doesn't need a spoiler tag: [[ForegoneConclusion you are told at the start of the movie]].)
* ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'': The BigBad and his {{Mooks}} are SS troops who have since been turned into vampires. A prequel manga titled ''Hellsing: The Dawn,'' covers two major characters dropping into Poland to make sure their vampires don't see the frontlines.
* ''Anime/StrikeWitches'' is an AlternateHistory version of WWII with aliens and girls who don't wear pants.
* ''Manga/{{Zipang}}''
* ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' isn't ''set'' here, but as only tanks created before August 14, 1945 are allowed, the ones we see used are a cross section of the most famous tanks of the war.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* CaptainAmerica punched Hitler in his very first issue. Most [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] superheroes, since they were published during the war, fought Nazis at some point.
* This was [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}''. In an EasterEgg 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.
* ''TheDesertPeach'' 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 06 June during the later years.
* A time-travel story in ''Comicbook/CaptainCarrotAndHisAmazingZooCrew'' 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 [[ThoseWackyNazis Ratzis]] alongside [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks 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 WW2
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
A number of the works below cover multiple categories and are grouped according to their main setting. Quite a few of these film titles were shoehorned into the above paragraphs.

In an era where the only major forms of mass entertainment were radio, theatre and cinema (British television went off for the duration), it is not surprising that a very large number of movies were made during the war. Most of them were patriotic flag-wavers of some form or another, but some of these films (including said flag-wavers) have stood the test of time, such as ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', ''In Which We Serve'' and ''Went The Day Well?''.

'''The Pacific Front'''

Most of the works here focus on the American and Japanese part in the Far East, although Commonwealth forces also played a major role (primarily the ANZAC forces, for obvious reasons). Only recently have films dealing with the China Incident started to appear, unsurprisingly given the delicate politics of the matter.

Think partisan warfare, big naval battles (most famously Midway), jungles, starving civilians, and the inconsistent (mis)treatment of non-combatants.

* ''ToraToraTora''
* ''Film/PearlHarbor''
* ''Sands of Iwo Jima''
* ''{{Midway}}''
* ''TheThinRedLine'' - about a squad of Marines island-hopping, although the title refers originally to a small Scottish force in the Crimean War
* ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'' - focuses on British [=POWs=] put to work in Burma
* ''GraveOfTheFireflies'' - a slice of [[FromBadToWorse Japanese civilian life]] in 1945
* ''FlagsOfOurFathers'' - the lives of the flag-raisers in the famous photo of raising the flag upon Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima
** ''LettersFromIwoJima'' - POVSequel to ''Flags'' showing the Battle of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective
* ''Film/EmpireOfTheSun'' - the life of a boy living in the British concession in Shanghai, and then a POW camp
* ''{{Kokoda}}'' - Australian soldiers in New Guinea
* ''Film/{{Windtalkers}}'' - focuses on a group of Amerindians trained as signalmen because their language is entirely unknown outside the U.S.
* ''SouthPacific''
* ''ThePacific'' - follows a group of US Marines through the Pacific island-hopping campaign
* ''They Were Expendable''
* ''Objective, Burma!''
* ''LustCaution'' - focuses on the Japanese occupation of China and local Chinese resistance.
* ''MemoirsOfAGeisha'' - a stylised account of the life of a Japanese entertainer-courtesan
* ''CityofLifeandDeath'' - aka 'Nanjing, Nanjing', focuses on the aftermath of the Battle of Shanghai and the pacification of the lower Yangtze
* ''GuadalcanalDiary'' - made during the war, based on a 1943 memoir
* ''Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo''
* ''FortGraveyard'' - A rare example of a film focusing on Japan vs. Manchurian China.

'''The Eastern Front'''

The bloodiest theatre of the war (the number of deaths there alone- over 25 million- would make the Eastern Front the worst war in history in its own right). Has been covered in film quite a bit (the Soviet film industry apparently made scores of them), but most of the examples aren't that well known outside of Eastern Europe. In most of the former USSR focus is not one WWII in general, but on "The GreatPatrioticWar" of 1941-45 - Soviet-German war.

It is common to see Germans in comedic works threatened with being sent to the Eastern Front - a posting there was nothing but trouble, and became a near-certain-death-sentence from '43 onwards. Saw the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad, for a start. Also many real-life cases of the MacrossMissileMassacre, as the "Katyusha" multiple rocket launcher was designed for this purpose.

* ''BattleOfMoscow''
* ''EnemyAtTheGates''
* ''Cross of Iron''
* ''Liberation''
* ''Film/{{Stalingrad}}''
* ''Film/{{Downfall}}''
* ''ComeAndSee''
* ''They Fought For Their Country''
* ''Cranes Are Flying''
* ''Ivan's Childhood''
* ''Only "Old Men" are going to battle''
* ''Ballad of a Soldier''
* ''Chronicles of a dive bomber''
* ''Officers''
* ''Two Soldiers''
* ''The Alive and the Dead''
* ''At war like at war''

'''The Finnish Front'''

A special case of the above, covering the struggles of the Winter War of 1939-40 and the Continuation war of 1941-44. Has been depicted several times on film, but these films are little known outside Finland. ChristopherLee volunteered to fight here, but never actually saw any combat on it.

* ''Kukushka/The Cuckoo'', a Russian film.
* ''Tuntematon Sotilas/The Unknown Soldier'', based on a novel by war veteran Väinö Linna. Two versions exist, one from 1955 and another made 30 years later.
* ''Talvisota'', a Finnish film set in the Winter War

'''The Western Front'''

The fighting around northern and western Europe, where the Americans play a large role. The British, Canadians and Free French (as well as a considerable number of other nationalities) were involved, but [[AmericaWinsTheWar they tend to be forgotten in US films]]. The early part of the war, from the invasion of Poland to the fall of France, is rarely depicted.

Expecting fighting in the woods, French villages and [[EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench some very grateful Frenchwomen]].

* ''Film/ABridgeTooFar'' looks at the Allied offensive in the Netherlands
* ''{{Atonement}}'' has a considerable section covering the evacuation of Dunkirk.
* ''BattleOfTheBulge'': ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin
* ''Eye Of The Needle'' where a Nazi spy discovers the Allies are pulling a [[KansasCityShuffle king sized fast one]] with Operation Fortitude on Germany to hide the true invasion destination for D-Day.
* ''KellysHeroes'' focuses on a hodgepodge unit put together by the title character, which is attempting to steal NaziGold.
* ''Indigènes/Days of Glory'' focuses on (ethnically not French) French Colonials fighting for the Free French through North Africa and into Italy.
* ''TheLongestDay''
* ''Film/IsParisBurning?'' deals with the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
* ''SavingPrivateRyan'' focuses on a unit as they make their way through the semi-organised chaos of Operation Overlord.
* ''Film/WhenTrumpetsFade'', set in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest.

'''North Africa and Italy'''

Initially, just between The Commonwealth, Italy, and other independent nations. Later, the Germans (led by ErwinRommel) and the Americans also took part.
An area of desert tank warfare, it also saw the creation of the SAS and the work of the Long Range Desert Group.
Famous for the presence of ''two'' [[BunnyEarsLawyer very quirky but effective generals]], George S. Patton and Bernard "Monty" Montgomery.

* ''Film/{{Patton}}'' - follows [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin General Patton]]
* ''TheDesertFox''
* ''The Rats of Tobruk'' - focus on [=ANZACs=] holed up in the besieged Libyan coastal town of Tobruk
* ''IceColdInAlex''
* ''The Desert Rats''
* Parts of ''Music/PinkFloyd: Music/TheWall''.
* ''Sahara''
* ''TheEnglishPatient''
* ''SaloOrThe120DaysOfSodom'' - torture porn at its most depraved, the setting of Fascist Italy is really just an excuse for... icky stuff.
* ''Series/TheRatPatrol''

'''Southern Europe'''

Greece and Yugoslavia.

* ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin''
* ''TheGunsOfNavarone'' and it's sequel ''ForceTenFromNavarone''

'''The Air War'''

In which the two sides of the war try to bomb each other into submission. A fair chunk of these are British and a number are based on true stories.

TheBlitz, which followed the Battle of Britain, was a German attempt to bomb the UK into surrendering, which didn't really work. The Battle of Britain had been a close run thing, as the British had spent much of the 1930s not investing in their fighter force as they had believed "the bomber will always get through". It took WinstonChurchill to persuade them otherwise- the Spitfire and the Hurricane arriving just in time.

The Blitz largely occurred in 1940-1941 and 1944-1945, the latter mostly using V1 and V2 missiles. There were more minor attacks on the United Kingdom during 1941-1944, but Hitler was focusing on the USSR.

While the actions of the Allied bombing missions in Germany have been subject to quite a bit of historical debate (although the bombing of civilians was actually legal at that time and there were legitimate industrial targets in German cities, it did not have the planned effect of destroying German industry or morale- it simply made them more resolved, much like what had happened during the Blitz), it should be noted that these bombing raids were very dangerous for British airmen. They flew at night, unlike the USAAF (US Army Air Force) who did the day missions. Of every 100 airmen, 55 on average would end up dead. The issue of not awarding separate medals for the British Bomber Command crews (who got the Air Crew Europe star that everyone else who flew over Europe did) is raised from time to time.

This is not to say that the USAAF had it any better. Flying by day meant they had a monstrously high casualty rate, particularly before P-51s were available for long range escort. There was a policy of "25 and out". Once an airman had done 25 missions, his war was over. The ball turret gunner, despite not having a parachute close to hand and being exposed to ground fire, wasn't actually that dangerous, relatively speaking. Just unpleasant, as they ended up doing somersaults in a tiny, cold, plexiglass and metal ball looking at a really long drop. The 25 got upped to 30 and then 35. The average crew got shot down around the [[ShootTheShaggyDog 20th mission]].

The Air War in the Pacific has received comparatively less attention, even though the scope and nature of the Pacific theater meant that air power played an even larger role there than it did in Europe. The strategic bombing campaign against Japan in particular has not received much attention, perhaps because it's difficult to portray massive fire raids against civilians in a heroic light. Even those who participated rarely considered it to be anything more than a [[NecessarilyEvil necessary evil]].

* ''Film/BattleOfBritain''
* ''TheDamBusters''
* ''633 Squadron''
* ''{{Catch-22}}''
* ''Twelve O'Clock High''
* Both versions of ''Memphis Belle''
* ''Reach for the Sky''
* ''Film/RedTails''
* ''The Tuskegee Airmen''
* ''Mosquito Squadron''
* ''TheBigOne''

Though less common there are several movies about the Air War in the Pacific:

* ''Air Force'' - one of the earliest examples
* ''God Is My Copilot'' - about the Flying Tigers
* ''The Flying Leathernecks''
* ''Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo''

'''Submarines / The Battle of the Atlantic'''

In which the German U-boats try to starve Britain into submission and stop equipment from getting to the Allies. The subs (on both sides) are hot, cramped and nasty. In fact, calling them submarines is slightly inaccurate, considering that most of their time was spent on the surface.

This campaign started pretty much on day one of the war, making it the longest battle in human history. A German U-boat mistook a passenger liner running without lights for an armed merchant ship... [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Athenia You get the idea]].

Three-quarters of those who went out in the U-boats did not return.

* ''Film/DasBoot''-- a German movie.
* ''Film/{{U-571}}''--an American movie that caused outrage in Britain due to showing the first captured Enigma machine to be recovered by an [[HollywoodHistory American submarine crew]].
* ''Enigma''
* ''We Dive at Dawn'' -- a British movie made in 1942, set on a British submarine.
* ''Lifeboat'' -- an Creator/AlfredHitchcock movie made in 1943, involving the survivors of a sunk merchant ship.
* ''Film/TheEnemyBelow'' -- an American destroyer escort and a German U-boat duel on the high seas. Inspired the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Balance of Terror."

The Americans carried out their own sub warfare against Japan, which succeeded in putting a large proportion of the country's people on the verge of [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou death-from-starvation-related-diseases.]]

* ''Run Silent, Run Deep''
* ''Crash Dive''
* ''Submarine Command''
* ''Film/OperationPetticoat'' -- a comedy, Very, VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory about evacuating nurses from Indonesia to Australia.
* ''Destination Tokyo''

The early years of the war in the Atlantic also saw some combat between surface ships, in particular the raids of the German battleships ''Admiral Graf Spee'' and the (in)famous ''Bismarck''.

* ''The Battle of the River Plate''
* ''Sink the Bismarck!''
* ''The Sea Chase''

'''LaResistance[=/=]Special Forces'''

The most famous is arguably the French Resistance, but the other movements throughout Europe, most notably Greeks, Yugoslavs, Soviets and Poles, were very effective in their respective countries too.

* ''The Sorrow and the Pity'' is an excellent {{Documentary}} about both the French Resistance and the [[LesCollaborateurs Vichy regime]] that they opposed.
* ''The Heroes Of Telemark''
* ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''
* ''Film/TheDirtyDozen''
* ''Female Agents''
* ''Defiance''
* ''Flame and Citron'', about the [[SnubByOmission often-forgotten]] Danish resistance.
* ''WhereEaglesDare''
* ''TheGunsOfNavarone''
* ''Force 10 from Navarone''
* ''InglouriousBasterds''
* ''PimpernelSmith''
* ''Army of Shadows''
* ''BlackBook''
* ''The old gun''
* ''Film/IsParisBurning?''
* ''Film/LaGrandeVadrouille''


'''POW Movies'''

The Germans ''generally'' kept the Geneva Conventions with regards to US, UK and French prisoners, although by the end of the war, they were seriously considering throwing the Conventions out of the window, with the Allied bombing raids as the excuse. Geneva had never so much as been in the building when it came to the Slavic peoples - captured Red Army soldiers usually ended up as slaves or starved in death camps at best.

You did ''not'' want to fall into the hands of the Japanese.

* ''TheGreatEscape''
* ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai''
* ''{{Stalag 17}}''
* ''VonRyansExpress''
* ''SlaughterhouseFive''
* ''King Rat''
* ''ATownLikeAlice''
* ''Paradise Road''
* ''MerryChristmasMrLawrence''
* ''EscapeToVictory'' which crosses a POW film with a Sports Film

'''The Holocaust'''

* ''SchindlersList''
* ''ThePianist''
* ''Amen''
* ''Judgement at Nuremberg'' (not actually about the actual trial of the key Nazis, it's a fictional tale based on the Judges' Trial and a real life case).
* ''TheBoyInTheStripedPajamas''
* ''LifeIsBeautiful''
* ''Jakob the Liar''
* ''Escape From Sobibor''
* ''{{Bent}}''
* ''Au revoir les enfants''
* ''The Round Up''
* ''Film/{{Conspiracy}}'', a film based on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference Wannsee Conference]] where the FinalSolution is set in motion.

'''The Home Front - UK'''

* ''Hope and Glory'', a rather sunny movie set in London during the Blitz
* ''Film/MrsHendersonPresents''
* ''MrsMiniver''
* ''Music/PinkFloyd Music/TheWall'' has many flashbacks of the main character waiting for his father to return.
* ''TheKingsSpeech''
* ''BedknobsAndBroomsticks''. While it is mostly a fantasy movie, it features the Home Guard and BlitzEvacuees.

'''The Home Front - USA'''

* ''Film/SinceYouWentAway''
* ''SwingShift''
* ''ALeagueOfTheirOwn''
* ''TheBestYearsOfOurLives'' concerns the efforts of three ex-servicemen to readjust to life in the States immediately ''after'' the war.
* ''WeveNeverBeenLicked''
* ''[[NineteenFortyOne 1941]]'', though this one is a comedy.

'''Other'''

Things that don't really fit elsewhere:

* ''Saboteur'' (essentially ''The Thirty-Nine Steps'' set in America)
* ''The Brylcreem Boys'' (combatants from ''both'' sides in a POW camp in neutral Ireland)
* ''TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', at least at the very beginning.
* ''Film/TheOthers'' a ghost movie set on the Channel Island, Jersey during the German occupation.
* ''Literature/TheTinDrum'' takes place before, during, and just after the war.
* ''Film/AMatterOfLifeAndDeath'', a supernatural love story about a pilot who bailed out of a plane without a parachute and lived, much to heaven's chagrin. Set mainly in a military convalescent hospital, and in the afterlife.
* ''SeventeenMomentsOfSpring'', famous soviet series about spy in Gestapo.
* ''Shield and Sword'', another series about soviet spy.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''[[{{Narnia}} The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe]]'': TheFilmOfTheBook turns a single sentence mentioning the Pevensie kids being sent to live in the country "because of the air raids" into a dangerous scene that takes place right in the middle of the London Blitz.
** Something of a reality to that- there was a second evacuation of vulnerable Londoners during the Blitz as many had returned after the initial feared raids hadn't materialised.
* The LenDeighton novel ''City of Gold'', set in North Africa. Also ''Bomber''. Also ''SS-GB'' which is about [[AlternateHistory what it would be if England was occupied]].
* Jack Higgins has written quite a few.
* ''{{Catch-22}}'', set in Italy.
* The Guernsey / Armishire books in the ''ChaletSchool'' series are set during the Second World War, and the effects of the war on the school are a major part of the plots of ''The Chalet School in Exile'', ''The Chalet School Goes To It'' and ''The Highland Twins at the Chalet School''.
* RobertLudlum has a few too.
* Dean Koontz' ''Lightning'' [[spoiler:at least, that's Stefan's time period of origin and where various pivotal events take place. Other events range from 1955 to 1988.]]
* Disney's ''Bedknobs and Broomsticks'', featuring an fictional invasion of England.
* Creator/PoulAnderson's alternate history ''Literature/OperationChaos''. In fact, one of the first things the narrator says is, better too much information than too little, and if you already know who won World War II, let me say it anyhow. Turns out you don't even know who ''fought'' World War II or where. (The timelines diverged early in the twentieth century.)
* Jane Yolen's fairytale adaption ''Briar Rose'' is one of these. Definitely falls under TrueArtIsAngsty, even if [[spoiler:it doesn't COMPLETELY manage a DownerEnding.]]
** Also by Jane Yolen, "The Devil's Arithmetic" – The Holocaust, the GrandfatherParadox, and sadly, a bucketload of teachable moments.
* Also, ''Literature/NumberTheStars'' takes place in Denmark, WorldWarII.
* ''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.
* ''TheEnglishPatient'', set mostly in Italy and North Africa, with a bit of Britain, India, and Canada.
* ''Literature/{{Cryptonomicon}}''.
* The Barrett Tillman novel ''Dauntless'' set during Midway. One character killed during the story is the father of Bud Callaway, President in his earlier novel ''TheSixthBattle''.
* ''{{Atonement}}'', or about two-thirds of the story - set in Dunkirk and the English homefront.
* ''TheBookThief'' 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.
* ''TheCaineMutiny''. Set on the Pacific front, but hardly features any combat.
* [[TheWindsOfWarAndWarAndRemembrance The Winds of War / War and Remembrance]] is practically a grand tour of WorldWarII.
* 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).
* Literature/{{Night}} by Elie Wiesel, an autobiography about his time in the concentration camps and on the way there.
* The novels by SvenHassel on the 27th Penal Panzer Regiment.
* ''Settling Accounts'' (Harry Turtledove AlternateHistory pitting the USA against the Confederate States of America; CSA president Jake Featherston is Hitler in all but name. What minority is he wiping out in the death camps? [[spoiler:Confederate Negroes]]).
* Also by HarryTurtledove, the Darkness series, which is WWII set in a fantasy environment, with each side replaced with a FantasyCounterpartCulture and [[{{Magitek}} magic wands and dragons instead of guns and bombers]].
* A third HarryTurtledove book set is the {{Worldwar}} series, about an alien invasion in May, 1942, following to the end of that war, plus further series looking at the 1960s and the 1990s.
* The ''Literature/WingCommander'' novelizations are explicitly intended as sci-fi remakes of certain key points in WW2.
* ''MemoirsOfAGeisha'' mainly took place during the Great Depression, though it was the start of the war that changed many things for the main character Sayuri.
* ''Literature/AThreadOfGrace'' takes place in the year and a half between Italy's surrender and V-E day.
* ''SilentShipSilentSea'': A coming of age story aboard a damaged destroyer at Guadelcanal.
* ''Literature/AdolfHitlerMyPartInHisDownfall'' is SpikeMilligan's account of serving in the Royal Artillery in North Africa during the war.
* ''ShanghaiGirls'' starts out in China in 1937, around the time Japanese soldiers invade.
* ''The Blindness of the Hearts (Die Mittagsfrau)'' takes place in Germany and starts out in the WorldWarI era, and then things [[FromBadToWorse get worse]] for the characters when the war begins: [[spoiler:at least one character dies in the camps, and the main character is forced to deny her Jewish heritage and carry falsified Aryan papers.]]
* Biggles appears in a number of books set in WW2
* The ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' book "Elfangor's Secret" has the heroes chasing a time-traveling Controller. By the time they get to World War II, things have been changed enough that Hitler is now a lowly jeep driver, though the war still happens, including the D-Day invasion happening on the same day.
* Creator/RobertWestall set several of his books and short stories during World War II, most famously ''The Machine Gunners'' but also, ''Blitzcat,'' ''[[CaptainObvious The Blitz]],'' and ''Blackham's Wimpey'' from the anthology ''Literature/BreakOfDark.''
* ''TheNakedAndTheDead'', set on a fictional island at the Pacific.
* Taylor Anderson's ''Destroyermen'' series is set from early 1942 onwards, based around two Asiatic destroyers [[spoiler: and japanese Battlecruiser Amagi and ehr crew]] sent to an alternate reality.
* Jonathan Littell's ''The Kindly Ones''. Maximilian Aue is an SS officer of French and German ancestry. He helps carry out massacres during the Holocaust and finally flees from Germany to start a new life in northern France. Aue is present during several of the major events of the war.
* ''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14907/14907-h/14907-h.htm Living Alone]]'' by Stella Benson
* ''The Snow Goose''
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/AlloAllo''
* ''BandOfBrothers'': Follows a paratrooper unit through France and into Germany.
** ''ThePacific''
* ''Series/BombGirls''
* ''Changi'': an Australian miniseries set in the titular Singaporean POW camp.
* ''{{Colditz}}'': A British series set in the titular Nazi POW castle.
* ''Series/{{Combat}}''
* ''Series/DadsArmy''
* Four ''Series/DoctorWho'' stories - "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E9TheEmptyChild The Empty Child]]"/"[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E10TheDoctorDances The Doctor Dances]]", "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E03VictoryOfTheDaleks Victory of the Daleks]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWho2011CSTheDoctorTheWidowAndTheWardrobe The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe]]".
** On the DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse front, the novels ''Timewyrm: Exodus'', ''Just War'', ''Autumn Mist'', ''The Turing Test'', ''Illegal Alien'' and ''The Shadow in the Glass''.
* ''FoylesWar''
* ''Four tankmen and a dog''
* ''GarrisonsGorillas''
* ''Series/HogansHeroes''
* ''HomeFront''
* ''McHalesNavy''
* ''Series/TheRatPatrol''
* ''Secret Army''
* ''Series/TheSinkingOfTheLaconia''
* ''Series/{{Tenko}}''
* The first season of the ''Series/WonderWoman'' TV series.
* ''TheTwilightZone'' had several episodes set in, or strongly relating to, WWII.
* ''MagnumPI'' (Johnathan Quayle Higgins is a RetiredBadass from those days and has a number of stories which annoy his companions but which sometimes seem quite good to this tropper.)
* ''PrivateSchulz''
* The ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "Captain Jack Harkness" reveals where Jack, first introduced in ''Series/DoctorWho'''s "The Empty Child", stole his identity from.
* The ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' episode ''Lost in Time'' has Clyde on the shores of Britain in 1941, discovering a Nazi plot involving alien tech.
* ''Series/{{Danger 5}}'' is set in [[AnachronismStew WWII in the 60s with dinosaurs and Japanese robot soldiers]]. It follows the Danger 5 [[MultinationalTeam team]] trying to kill [[StupidJetpackHitler Hitler]].
* ''Series/WishMeLuck''
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'' has the episode "Each Of Us Angels" which focuses on a group of Navy nurses before and during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Also the episode "Port Chicago" is based on a real-life accident.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Radio]]
* ''Radio/TheAdventuresOfSuperman'' featured many war-related storylines before and during the U.S.A.'s involvement.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* Europe Engulfed
** Pacific Engulfed
* World at War
* ''Axis & Allies''
* ''Flames of War'' - only covering the European and African parts of the war though.
* ''Weird War'' is like {{Deadlands}}, only [[RecycledInSPACE during WWII]]. [[{{Grindhouse}} Werewolves of the SS included.]]
* In the 1960s through the 1980s, Avalon Hill and SPI thrived on tabletop games about WWII: ''Third Reich, Afrika Korps, Patton's War, Midway, Battle of the Bulge'', and a zillion others
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theater]]
* ''Imagine This''- a musical set in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.
* ''Mister Roberts'' takes place in the Pacific but far from combat. V-E Day happens during the course of the play's action.
* ''SouthPacific'' is likewise set far from the action in a backwater Pacific island.
* ''TheLongAndTheShortAndTheTall'' is a play about a section of Britsh infantrymen trapped behind enemy lines in Burma.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games]]
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} Battlefield 1942 and 1943]]''
* ''VideoGame/BloodRayne''
* The ''Wolfenstein'' series:
** ''VideoGame/CastleWolfenstein''
** ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D''
** ''VideoGame/ReturnToCastleWolfenstein''
** ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}''
* ''MedalOfHonor'' - except for the 2010 reboot.
* ''Day of Defeat''
* ''CallOfDuty'' - except for the ''ModernWarfare'' games, which take place TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture. ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps Black Ops]]'' mostly takes place during the ColdWar, but has a flashback to a Soviet special operation shortly after the Germans surrendered.
* ''WorldWarIIOnline'' - a massively multiplayer first person shooter setduring the Battle of France. Notable for featuring the [[GaulsWithGrenades French Armed Forces]].
* ''CompanyOfHeroes''
* ''Blitzkrieg''
* ''Afrikakorps vs Desert Rats'', ''1944 Battle of the Bulge'' and ''Moscow to Berlin''
* ''HeartsOfIron''
* ''VideoGame/SilentHunterSeries'' (I through IV) - Not that ''SilentHunter''...
* ''AceCombatZero'' starts out as a metaphor for World War II, until things take a twist for the weird toward the end.
* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' is set in 1944, mentions all the loss of life from World War II as the reason the castle has reappeared, includes a grenade sub-weapon that looks like a US WWII-era grenade, and the cutscene preceeding the boss battle with Medusa shows a petrified GI ([[FridgeLogic don't ask how they got in Dracula's castle, let alone in one of Brauner's portraits]]). Other than that, however, WWII has little relevance to the plot.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' is blatantly based off of WWII, complete with the attempted genocide of an ethnic minority.
* ''Battlestations Midway'' and the sequel ''Battlestations Pacific'' both cover aerial and naval warfare in the Pacific Theatre.
** ''Battlestations Pacific'' features a new WhatIf scenario for the Japanese; what if they'd won the Battle of Midway and proceeded on to attack the United States?
* ''VideoGame/OperationDarkness'' (WorldWarII [[RecycledINSPACE WITH WEREWOLVES AND VAMPIRE NAZIS!]])
* SierraOnline'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 WorldWarII, from the submarine and air campaigns in both oceans, to the land war in Europe and northern Africa.
* {{Il-2 Sturmovik}}
* ''WarFrontTurningPoint'' puts the whole of World War 2 into a WhatIf scenario, and mixes in a bit of CommandAndConquerRedAlert.
* ''SecretWeaponsOfTheLuftwaffe''
* ''B-17 Flying Fortress''
* The ''NineteenFortyTwo'' series of ShootEmUps--at least most of the series anyway--is very loosely based on WWII.
* The Pacific campaign of ''EmpireEarth: Art of Conquest''.
* ''[[ClockTower Clock Tower 3]]'' features the protagonist evading a serial killer during the London bombings.
* ''TheSaboteur'' - one of the few games focused on the French Resistance.
* ''WorldOfTanks'' -- the heart of the game is here, although available tanks stretch from 1917 to 1966.
* ''CompanyOfHeroes''
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/ExoSquad'' is WorldWarII RecycledInSpace. It's not a complete rip-off but the premise just screams WW2. According to ThatOtherWiki, the WordOfGod admits it.
* [[WartimeCartoon Many theatrical cartoons made in the early half of the 1940s]] had popular characters like DonaldDuck, [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck]], and {{Popeye}} doing their part in the war effort.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Histeria}}'' had an episode about World War II featuring FranklinRoosevelt, Winston Churchill, and JosephStalin as a group of superheroes fighting off an evil group led by a Satanic Adolf Hitler.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', the League has to go back in time and help out in the Normandy invasion to prevent Vandal Savage's plan of taking Hitler's place and using his knowledge of the future to win the war.
* Like ''Justice League'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' had a WWII time travel episode. Goliath fights in the Battle of Britain.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''TheCobraDays'', a fan webcomic prequel to the ''Franchise/MetalGear'' series. It chronicles the adventures of a ''very'' quirky Allied Special Forces MultinationalTeam, with plenty of MagicRealism and other weirdness that didn't quite make it into the history books.
* ''TheSpecialists'' is an AlternateHistory [[http://thespecialistscomic.com webcomic]] in which the Nazis use occult artifacts and eugenics to produce super-powered ''Übermenschen'' and America responds with its own super-soldier program.
[[/folder]]

* DoNotTauntCthuhul: Exploited with the atom bomb. Japan ''finally'' surrendered because their leaders could afford to admit without embarrassing themselves that they had better surrender to a country that has bombs made from the [[EldritchAbomination fabric of the universe.]]

After the fall of France Japan took the opportunity to effectively seize the French colony of Indochina - including modern-day Cambodia and Vietnam - as part of their blockade strategy, . ostensibly at the "invitation" of the [[LesCollaborateurs collaborationist Vichy government]]. Thailand, fully aware of which way the wind is blowing, becomes a Japanese client state. President FranklinDRoosevelt, worried about Japanese expansion in Asia, has been looking for an excuse to act against them for a while now. He manages to get the United States to restrict all steel and oil exports to Japan in an embargo in an attempt to bring them to the negotiating table concerning China. Since the US is Japan's #1 supplier of both essential commodities, the Japanese government is forced between a rock and a hard place; they cannot be seen as backing down to the US, but they don't have the strength to take them on and win. With Holland having fallen to the Germans and Britain preoccupied elsewhere, the Imperial Navy again proposes, for the umpteenth time, their plan to strike south to seize the oil supplies and rich natural resources of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and British Malaya.

After a long string of increasingly plausible-looking reports that ''something'' big and offensive-looking was brewing, Stalin did, eventually, accept that the Red Army should start planning for a defence of the country... [[{{Irony}} on June the 21st, 1941]]. Thus the Axis plunge deep into the USSR as the Red Army is basically left unable to do anything but blow bridges and damns, tear up railway tracks and cut telephone lines to slow the Germans' advance and make effectively controlling the soon-to-be occupied territories more difficult. Even when they 'do' muster the required forces, the German organisational advantage is ''huge''; too much is happening with too many different units in too many places and the Soviets' various headquarters can barely keep track of it all. This isn't helped by the lingering effects of the purges, which have left the Army short of experienced senior officers and encouraged junior officers to systematically misreport things so that everything (on paper) looks like their superior offers expect it to be. Nor is this helped by various Headquarters units getting captured along with their men. Despite their lack of co-ordination, which sees many such scratch-armies getting surrounded and eventually crushed, [[CurbStompCushion numerous Soviet forces fight fiercely until they are broken as military units]]. The Germans don't actually have enough soldiers to encircle these formations properly, even with their Axis allies to-hand, so many men from these destroyed units manage to slip off into the vastness of the countryside to become partisans.

-> ''Si monumentum requiris, circumspice''
-->-- Anon [[note]]"If you seek its monument, look around you."[[/note]]

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