September 1, 1946: King George II and Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou of Greece move the government of Greece from Cairo, Egypt to the newly-liberated city and Greek capital of Athens.
George II
Georgios Papandreou
September 3, 1946: As the Allied armies finally reach Germany from their offensive throughout France and the Low Countries, the Battle of Aachen begins.
An American machine-gun crew fighting against the German armies on September 29, 1946
September 6, 1946: Operation Tidal Wave; the Soviet and American air forces bomb the Romanian oil fields of Ploesti. This is a large blow to the German and Axis war effort.
September 7, 1946: After months of Allied aerial bombardments throughout mainland Italy, the American, British, Canadian, ANZAC and French invasion of mainland Italy begins. A limited amount of forces from Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Greece and the Free Belgian, Free Dutch, Free Polish, Free Czechoslovak forces also partake in the invasion.
The Allies invade with the American armies under George S. Patton and Mark W. Clark, the British Commonwealth armies under Harold Alexander and Oliver Leese and the French armies under Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. The Germans defend with Albert Kesselring, Heinrich von Vietinghoff and Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin and the Italians defend with Vittorio Ambrosio and Ugo Cavallero.
Heinrich von Vietinghoff
Vittorio Ambrosio
September 9, 1943: The Allied armies land outside of the cities of Salerno in the region of Campania and Taranto in the region of Apulia in southern Italy.
Allied soldiers land on the beaches outside of Salerno, September 9, 1946
September 10, 1946: Soviet troops begin an offensive to liberate the Crimean Peninsula from occupation by Nazi Germany.
September 12, 1946: As a result of the recent Allied invasion of mainland Italy, the Italian Social Republic becomes a German puppet state as the German government and military begins gaining the reins of power over the Italian government and military apparatus, making Mussolini little more than a puppet of Hitler.
September 14, 1946: The Allied invasion of Sardinia and Corsica begins. The Allied forces invade from Sicily, Algeria and Southern France and land on the beaches outside of the cities of Cagliari in Sardinia and Ajaccio in Corsica.
September 16, 1946: At about 11:00 GMT, The first German V-1 rocket attack takes place on Great Britain just outside of London.
The aftermath and cleanup of the first V-1 rocket attack on London on the morning of September 17, 1946
September 20, 1946: The Soviet Air Force begins a series of large-scale air raids over German-occupied Belarus, Poland and Baltics.
September 22, 1946: In conjunction with the aforementioned air raids, the Soviet Air Force begins a series of air raids over Romania and Bulgaria.
September 25, 1946: In retaliation for the recent German V-1 rocket attack on British soil, the British Royal Air Force conducts another large-scale air raid on Berlin.
September 30, 1946: Naples, one of the main cities of southern Italy, is liberated by the American and British Commonwealth armies. As the Allied soldiers enter Naples, they are greeted by the residents of the city as liberators.
American soldiers ride on an army jeep and are greeted by jubilant civilians through Naples after the city's liberation, September 30, 1946. Note the flag of the Kingdom of Italy hung up by the pro-monarchy and anti-fascist Neapolitan civilians.
October 1, 1946: The British RAF conducts another large-scale bombing raid on Hamburg, in which the RAF drops an unprecedented total of 3000 tons of bombs on the city.
October 3, 1946: After almost a month of fighting, the city of Taranto is liberated by the Allies.
October 6, 1946: In Palermo, Allied-occupied Sicily, the Kingdom of Italy is officially reestablished with both military support and diplomatic recognition from the nations of the Allied Powers. King Umberto II is declared King of Italy, while Ferruccio Parri is made interim Prime Minister of Italy.
Ferruccio Parri
October 9, 1946: The Battle of Aachen ends in an Allied victory. In the aftermath of the battle, a massive German surrender takes place at Aachen, Germany.
October 11, 1946: The Slovak National Uprising ends in a victory for Nazi Germany and the Slovak State.
October 14, 1946: Th
e newly re-established armies of the Kingdom of Italy in Sicily are sent to Allied positions in mainland Italy to fight with the Allies against the Axis throughout mainland Italy.
October 15, 1946:
After weeks of consolidating their positions throughout the newly liberated Kingdom of Greece, the British, Canadian and ANZAC armies began an invasion of the Axis-held Balkans from positions throughout Greece. The Allied armies invade, in a three-pronged offensive, the Italian protectorate of Albania and the Macedonian and Thracian regions of Bulgaria, which were annexed from Yugoslavia and Greece respectively in 1941.
October 19, 1946: Soviet troops recapture Sevastopol, the main city of the Crimean Peninsula.
Soviet soldiers crossing the Sivash Bay into the Crimean Peninsula, October, 1946
October 25, 1946: In Palermo, Sicily, the National Liberation Committee (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale or CLN) an umbrella organization for the Italian resistance movement, is est
ablished. In practice however, it proves almost impossible for the CLN to control the activities of all of the partisans on the Italian mainland, be they communists, republicans, monarchists, or of other ideologies.
October 29, 1946: The Allies liberate
Skopje, the main city of the Yugoslav region of Macedonia, for Yugoslavia and from Bulgaria. Before the Yugoslav government in exile will gain control of their former lands, the city is under the occupation of the British and British Commonwealth for the time being.
October 30, 1946: The British, Canadian and ANZAC armies begin bombarding and invading the Italian-owned Albanian capital of Tirana. Meanwhile, Albanian par
tisans, including communist, monarchist and republican partisans, begin a large-scale insurrection in and around Tirana.
Albanian Partisans outside of Tirana, October, 1946
November 1, 1946: In preparation for a large-scale invasion and military campaign to liberate the old Soviet capital of Moscow from German occupation, the Soviet Air Forces begin large scale air raids over German-occupied Moscow and much of the surrounding areas throughout western Russia, including on German military bases.
November 6, 1946: After an almost week-long battle, the Allies liberate the Albanian capital of Tirana from the Italian armies.
November 9, 1946: The Italian armies in Albania surrender to the Allied armies. Francesco Jacomoni di San Savino, the governor of the Italian protectorate of the Albanian Kingdom, is subsequently arrested by the British and Albanian Partisan armies.
November 10, 1946: King Zog enters Tirana in triumph. After over seven years of Italian occupation and as a protectorate of the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Albania is a sovereign nation once again.
King Zog I of Albania
November 12, 1946: The French armies re-capture the city of Strasbourg (or as it is known in German, Straßburg) from Nazi Germany. After switching hands between France and Germany for the last seventy-six years, the city is back in the possession of France for good this time.
November 15, 1946: Allied forces, including Free Yugoslavian forces, begin an invasion of Italian occupied Montenegro.
November 19, 1946: The Allied Offensive on the Sangro River in the Italian region of Abruzzo begins.
November 21, 1946: The Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive ends in a Soviet and American victory. Thus, almost all of Ukraine, save for much of the far-west of the country bordering the German General Government/German-occupied Poland, is liberated by the Soviet Union.
November 26, 1946: After an almost two month-long campaign, the German armies in the Crimea surrender to the American and Soviet armies.
November 30, 1946: After weeks of advancing throughout Thrace and Bulgaria, the Allied armies reach the outskirts of and begin bombarding the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. Thus, the Battle of Sofia begins.
December 1, 1946: The German defensive line on the Sangro River is finally broken
by the continued Allied advancement and bombardment. Thus, the Sango Offensive ends in an Allied victory. On this same day, the Battle for the Bernhardt Line begins.
December 3, 1946: In the Moro River Campaign, the Allied armies begin the battle for the town of Orsogna in the Italian region of Abruzzo and north of the Sangro River.
December 4, 1946: The Battle of the Bulge, an immensely climactic, violent and bloody battle of the Second World War, begins in the Ardennes region of northern France.
M3 90mm gun-armed American M36 tank destroyers advance to fight against the German spearhead near Werbomont, Belgium, December 8, 1946
December 7, 1946: French soldiers drive through the 'Beffort Gap' in an effort to reach the strategically important Rhine River in Nazi Germany.
December 8, 1946: The Siege of Bastogne begins.
December 9, 1946: The first Allied attack toward the town of Cassino in the Italian region of Lazio takes place.
December 13, 1946: General Omar Bradley relives the American armies, led principally by Anthony McAuliffe, fighting against the armies of Nazi Germany over the town of
Bastogne in Belgium.
Omar Bradely
Anthony McAuliffe
December 14, 1946: In the Malmedy Massacre, one of the worst war crimes of the Second World War, the Waffen-SS murder in cold blood over ninety American and other Allied POWs at the town of Malmedy in Belgium. That same day, the Siege of Bastogne ends in an American victory.
December 15, 1946: After weeks of brutal winter weather fighting, the Battle of the Bulge ends in an Allied victory. After all is said and done, the Battle of the Bulge turns out to be one of the largest and bloodiest battles fought by the armies of the United States of America in all of World War II.
American troops move past a destroyed American M5A1 "Stuart" tank on their march to recapture the town of St. Vith in Belgium, December, 1946
December 16, 1946: After weeks of bombardment and besieging, the Bulgarian capital of Sofia is captured and liberated by the Allies. Prime Minister Ivan Ivanov Bagryanov of Bulgaria surrenders to the Allies and is placed under arrest by the British armies. The Bulgarian royal family, including the nine-year old Tsar Simeon II, is placed under the protection the British Commonwealth armies. Thus, Kimon Georgiev, leader of the anti-fascist Fatherland Front, becomes interim Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
Kimon Georgiev
December 19, 1946: The entirety of the Kingdom of Bulgaria is liberated by the Allied Powers. On this same day, the Kingdom of Bulgaria switches sides, becomes a part of the Allied Powers and declares war on Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers.
December 24, 1946: On
Christmas Eve, the Moro River Campaign and the Battle of Orsonga ends in a stalemate between the Allied and Axis armies.
December 26, 1946: The entirety of the Kingdom of Belgium is liberated by the Allied Powers from Nazi German occupation.
December 29, 1946: The Yugoslav government-in-exile, led by King Peter II and Prime Minister Ivan Šubašić, sets up its temporary capital in the newly liberated city of Skopje.
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Ivan Šubašić
Decembe
r 31, 1946: On the last day of 1946, the leaders of the nations of the Allied Powers, both political and military, hope the war will be over "by the end of 1947", as General Eisenhower puts it to President Byrnes in a telegram sent from Aachen to Washington D.C. wishing the President of the United States a Happy New Year.