Key dates in a brutal conflict
Japan launches surprise attack on US Navy ships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with Britain and its Allies formally declaring war next day.
Key British base Singapore is attacked and falls in a week with 80,000 prisoners. PM Winston Churchill calls it “the worst capitulation in British history”.
The Battle of Midway, a huge naval and aerial engagement around a tiny mid-Pacific island, is a turning point. US Navy avenges Pearl Harbor and halts Japanese expansion.
British and Indian forces arrive in Burma to confront the enemy in a campaign which will last three years.
First US land offensive, against the garrison on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
Outnumbered Australian troops win grim Kokoda Track campaign in Papua New Guinea.
NOV 1943 US Marines suffer 3,000 casualties capturing 800-yard wide Betio island in amphibious assault on Tarawa Atoll.
British, Indian and Ghurka troops halt Japanese drive on
India at Kohima, including savage hand-to-hand combat on a tennis court.
Iwo Jima is the first Japanese territory to be attacked, leaving 30,000 dead.
The Battle of Okinawa is the last major conflict of WWII, 82 days of horror that end in up to 250,000 military and civilian deaths.
The Allies capture Rangoon and go on to liberate Burma.
After Japan rejects a surrender ultimatum the US drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing 66,000.
A second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki kills 39,000.
Japan surrenders after its leader, Emperor Hirohito, says more fighting would lead to civilisation’s extinction.