Book of World War II

Book of World War II was an historic event that touched nearly every person alive during that time. What was it like to be one of the millions of soldiers who fought the battles? Or a civilian worker making the tanks and bombs? Or a child your age, either in Japanese death camps, Ambarawa Camp Seven? You can find out. There are still thousands of people alive today who were soldiers, civilians, or children during the Second World War, and who remember what they did and how they felt. Locate someone to interview about this extraordinary time. Then use the Writing Workshop to write and publish that person's oral history of WWI story in the Book of World War II.

WWII was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilisation of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their complete economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The beginning of the war is generally held to be in September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Nazi Germany by the United Kingdom, France and the British Dominions. Amongst these main events are the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the start of Operation Barbarossa, and the attack on Pearl Harbor and British and Dutch colonies in South East Asia. Many belligerents entered the war before or after this date, during a period which spanned from 1937 to 1941, as a result of other events.

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the war as the world's leading powers. 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. The self-determination spawned by the war accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration. The detailed original account of a war victim is explained in the Book of World War II is explained through a Kids view WW II.