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World War 2 Timeline
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When Great Britain declares war on Germany, the Dominions including Australia enter the war, too. That afternoon, Menzies words on a national wireless broadcast: "It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequences of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain had declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war."
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Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign.
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The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries.
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The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo, also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk.
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The Battle of Britain is the name given to the Second World War defence of the United Kingdom by the Royal Air Force against an onslaught by the German Air Force
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The Battle of Bardia was fought over three days between 3 and 5 January 1941, as part of Operation Compass, the first military operation of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. It was the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part, the first to be commanded by an Australian general and the first to be planned by an Australian staff.
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The Siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against the British Western Desert Force in Libya.
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The last battle of the German battleship Bismarck took place in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 300 nmi west of Brest, France.
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The United States declares war on Japan, entering World War II.
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The attack on Pearl Harbor, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaii Operation or Operation AI by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, and Operation Z during planning was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor.
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The first Japanese force to land in Papua, in advance of the main body of the Nankai Shitai, was to seize Kokoda and examine the practicality of advancing along the Kokoda track towards Port Moresby
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Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, led by a Japanese officer, walks under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore. It was the largest surrender of British-led forces in history.
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This was a suprize attack on allied ships at Broome and Darwin
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The First Battle of El Alamein was a major battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought on the northern coast of Egypt
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During the initial phase in early 1942, the Empire of Japan invaded the Australian-administered territories of the New Guinea, Mandate and Papua and overran western New Guinea
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Australia sent its AIF to North Africa, Greece, Crete and Cyprus
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The Battle of the Coral Sea was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia.
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The Battle of Midway was a crucial and decisive naval battle in the Pacific.
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The campaign consisted of a series of battles fought between July and November.
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The Dieppe Raid, also known as the Battle of Dieppe, Operation Rutter during planning stages, and by its final official code-name Operation Jubilee, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe.
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The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in Southern Russia, on the eastern boundary of Europe.
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They gained ground on LIS Australia and Papuan infantry in PNG
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Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign.
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The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front.
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Robert Menzies was Australia's longest serving Prime Minister. He had served a previous term as Prime Minister as leader of the United Australia Party from 1939–1941.
