ghostflowerdreams:

World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war. It is generally considered to have lasted from 1939 to 1945, although some conflicts in Asia that are commonly viewed as becoming part of the world war had begun earlier than 1939. It involved the vast majority of the world’s nations —including all of the great powers —eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis.

It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million people, from more than 30 different countries. In a state of “total war”, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the first use of nuclear weapons in combat, it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history. [1]

Names

• Social Security: Top Names of the 1940s
• Top 100 Names in England and Wales in 1944
• Top 100 Australian Baby Names in 1940
• Top German Baby Names in 1940s
• Japanese Baby Names for 1915 - 2000
• Popular Japanese Names in 1945 - 1949 (In Japanese - Use Google Translator)

Society & Life

• Conscription in the United States - World War II
• United States Imposes the Draft
• The National WWII Museum - The Draft and WWII
• Military Classifications For Draftees
• World War II Fitness Test
• Recruit Training in World War II
• The Old Army, It Turns Out, Was the Fitter One
• The War Relocation Camp of World War II
• The U.S. Home Front During World War II
• Britain’s Home Front in World War Two
• Japan’s Home Front During World War II 
• Germany’s Home Front During World War II
• Canadian War Museum - Life on the Homefront
• Canadian War Museum - Women and the War on the Home Front
  
• How was it that Sweden managed to stay neutral during WW2?
• What was going on in Ireland during World War II?
• Canadian War Museum - Canada and the Second World War
• Mount Allison University - Canada’s Role in WWII
  
• The Home Front in Rural America During World War II
• Living in the 1940s (Australia)
• BBC - WW2 People’s War: My Memories of My Childhood in South London
• BBC - WW2 People’s War: Growing Up in London 1939-45
• Time Witness - Memories Project: Stories from the 1940’s
• BBC - The Blitz
• History.com - Worst air raid on London
• EyeWitness to History - The London Blitz, 1940
• LIFE Magazine - World War II: London in Color (Photos)
• Local Histories - Life in Britain in The Second World War
• Telegraph - WW2: Former Evacuees Look Back
• British Council - A 1940s Childhood in Wartime
• The Wartime Memories Project - Evacuees
• My Learning - Children’s Experience during WWII
• Imperial Wartime Museum - Children During the Second World War
• It’s 1940, a lovely day in England and I want to write to my German cousin. Was that possible? What was international communication between the civilian populace of warring WWII powers like?
• The New Yorker - The New Yorker in the Forties
• The Atlantic - World War II: The Battle of Britain
• The Guardian - Children of the Wartime Evacuation
• NY Daily News - 1940 New York census records are now searchable by name
• New‑York Historical Society - WWII & NYC
• About.com - World War II In Brooklyn: Places to Visit
• New-York Historical Society - New York during WWII (Photos)
• Wikipedia - History of New York City, 1946-77
• Business Insider - Take A Tour Of Manhattan In The 1940s (Photos)
• Madison Magazine - Ida’s Wyman’s Photography Documents Life in the 1940s and ‘50s
• Growing up in Inwood, New York City in the 1940’s and 1950’s
• Reminisce Magazine - Brooklyn Stoop Served as Sisters’ Stage
• NY Times - Working-Class New York Life and Labor Since World War II
• Wessels Living History Farm - Rural Life in the 1940s
• Historic Color Photos of U.S. Life in the 1940s (Photos)
• Wessels Living History Farm - WWII Causes a Revolution in Farming
• Partners in Winning the War: American Women in World War II
• World War II: Women and the War
• Building Bombs & Planes
• Women in World War Two
• Wikipedia - Canadian Women in the Second World War
• Canadian War Museum - The Canadian Women’s Army Corps, 1941 - 1946
  
• About.com - Canadian Women in World War II
• Veterans Affairs Canada - The Second World War: Canadian War Brides
• Global News - Looking back at the role women from western Canada played in World War II
• Canadian Red Cross - History of Women in the Red Cross
  
• Women Under Fire in World War Two
• How did women fulfill their romantic/sexual needs during WWI/II?
• Women at War
• Life During World War II
• Everyday Life During World War II
• World War 2 - Growing Up in Wartime
• Wartime Homes
• World War 2 - Blackout Time
• What was it like for children?
• The Huffington Post - Memories Of 1940s Childhood
• The Life of a Teenage Before and After World War II (PDF)
• School and War Work
• I’m a 13-15 year old in 1939 USA. What is youth culture like during this time?
• A Black Nurse, a German Soldier and an Unlikely WWII Romance
• What was it like to be in the Forces?
• World War II - A Soldier’s Daily Life
• My Army Service in World War II
• WWII: A Soldier’s View
• Loose Lips Sink Ships
• Eye Witness To World War Two
• World War II First Person Accounts, Letters Home, Diaries, & Journals
• Pictures of African Americans During World War II (Photos)
• Daily Life of the Average African American in the 1940’s
• Veterans Affairs Canada - Second World War: Black Canadians In Uniform
  
• The Memory Project - Black Canadian Veterans of the Second World War
  
• University of Washington - Japanese Canadians During World War II
  
• Vancouver Public Library - Chinese-Canadians in World War II (1939-1945)
• Canada at War - Video & Footage: World War II
  
• Canadian War Museum - Canadian Newspapers and the Second World War
  
• Veterans Affairs Canada - Second World War: Diaries, Letters, And Stories
  
• Library and Archives Canada - Canada and the First World War: War Diaries
• Veterans Affairs Canada - Second World War: My Grandmother’s Wartime Diary
  
• The Canadian Letters and Images Project - WWII
• McGill University Library Digital Collections - Canadian War Posters Collection
  
• World War II Military (Photos)
• World War II Records
• World War 2: A Day in the Life of a German Soldier
• The Life During World War II
• Nazi Germany
• The Role of Women in Nazi Germany
• Diary of Second World War German Teenager
• Germany During World War II: A Child’s Experience (PDF)
• Reminiscences of a German World War II Veteran
• What kind of physical training would a German soldier in WWII have to do?
• Jewish Life in Europe Before the Holocaust
• The National WWII Museum - WWII and Holocaust Bibliography
• Blacks During the Holocaust
• Conditions for Polish Jews During WWII
• Understanding the Treatment of Jews during World War II
• There’s a lot of close-to-combat photographs from WWII, but I don’t often hear much about the photographers. Were WWII war photographers armed? Were they subject to neutrality/immunity/respect? Were they deployed with soldiers as part of the army?
• World War II Weapons
• List of World War II Weapons
• Canada at War - WWII: Weapons & Arms
  
• Small Arms Pt. II - The World War Two Era
• Technology During World War II
• WWII Military Ranks
• WWII Japanese Soldier Diary
• World War II Japanese Military Training
• Canadian War Museum - The Second World War: Information, Propaganda, Censorship and the Newspapers
  
• When was the last shot of World War 2 fired?
• Post-War American Life: Culture of the late 1940s & 1950s
• Library of Congress - Postwar United States, 1945 - 1968
• American History: Life in the US After World War Two
• Student Pulse - America in the Post War Period
• PBS - Women and Work After World War II
• PBS - New York After WWII
• BBC - Life in Britain after WW2 (Video)
• The Atlantic - World War II: After the War
• Digital History - Overview of the Post-War Era
• Mount Holyoke College - Background of Post-WWII German History
• Youtube - Germany After WW2 | A Defeated People | Documentary on Germany in the Immediate Aftermath of WW2 (Video)
• Der Spiegel Magazine - Out of the Ashes: A New Look at German’s Postwar Reconstruction
  

Commerce

• The Cost of Living in 1940
• Prices and Wages in 1930 - 1939
• The People History - Food, Groceries and Toiletries in the 1930s: Prices
• The People History - Clothes in the 1930s: Prices
• Library at University of Missouri - 1940-1949 Prices and Wages
• The People History - Food, Groceries and Toiletries in the 1940s Prices
• The People History - Clothes in the 1940s Prices
• Datafiles of Historical Prices and Wages
• Curbed NY - What Would $50 In 1940 Rent A New Yorker Today?

Entertainment & Food

• What did people eat in the Second World War?
• Why was food rationed?
• Rationing
• World Ward II - Food and Shopping
• Food on the Front Home
• Wartime Recipes
• What Did Children Eat During World War 2? (PDF)
• World War Two Recipes
• History Cookbook - World War 2 Recipes
• The 1940’s Experiment: 100+ Wartime Recipes
• Retro-Housewife: In the 1940s Kitchen: 1940s Recipes
• A 1940s Menu: Food in the 1940s
• Food Timeline: 1936 to 1940
• Vintage Food Advertisement of the 1940s
• World War II: Rest and Relaxation (Photos)
• Chocolate! The Wars Secret Weapon - America in WWII Magazine
• Chocolate - Energizing Soldiers 
• U.S. Coffee Rationing
• The American Scholar: Rum and Coca-Cola
• Wartime Canada - Food on the Home Front during the Second World War
• Alberta Online Encyclopedia - World War II: Homefront in Alberta: Rationing
• Wartime Canada - Recipe Ideas from BC Electric
  
• Pop Culture Goes to War in the 1940s
• WWII Guide: Wartime Hollywood
• Rationing and Scrap Drives in Rural America
• Baseball and World War II
• Baseball Goes To War: The National Pastime in World War II
• Entertainment in Britain During WWII 
• Entertainment Industry During World War II
• World War II on the Radio
• Wartime Entertainment WWII
• Wartime Entertainment
• Canadian War Museum - Art and War: Australia, Britain and Canada in the Second World War
  
• The Forties and the Music of World War II
• World War II Songs
• Music 1940 - 1949
• List of Billboard Number-One Singles of the 1940s
• American Music During World War II
• Role of Music in World War II
• Entertainment in 1940 - 1949
• Food Rations in the Japanese Forces
• Makeshift Cooking, German Army, WW2
• Radio in Nazi Germany
• Newspapers in Nazi Germany
• Films in Nazi Germany
• Art in Nazi Germany

Hygiene, Health & Medicine

• Medicine and World War II
• Social Security - Life Expectancy from 1930s+
• WWII Disease Table
• History of WWII Medicine
• The Use of Atabrine to Fight Malaria During World War II
• The Use of Plasma During World War II
• The Use of Morphine as a Pain Killer During World War II
• Nursing and Medicine During World War II
• The Army Nurse Corps in World War II
• Equipment of a WWII Combat Medic
• Personal Accounts of WWII Medics
• WWII African American Combat Medics
• Penicillin: Medicine’s Wartime Wonder Drug
• Medicine in Germany, 1918 - 1945
• World War II Exposures 
• Controlling Disease during World War II, 1939 - 1944
• Health on the Home Front - Health Care and World War II
• WAR & Military Mental Health
• Mentally Ill and Jewish in World War II
• U.S. Veterans Affairs Lobotomized Soldiers After World War II
• Lobotomy For World War II Veterans: Psychiatric Care by U.S. Government

Fashion

• 1930-45 in Fashion
• Clothing, 1930-45
• Rationing Fashion in the United States
• Fashion in the 1940s
• 1940s Make-Up Guide
• 1940’s Beauty Secrets
• 1940s Fashion: The Decade Captured in 40 Incredible Pictures (Photos)
• 1940s Rationing - Utility Clothing Fashion and Costume History
• Women’s Clothing in 1940s
• Fashion in 1940 - 1949
• Fashion in the 1940s: Clothing Styles, Trends, Pictures & History
• Fashion in the 1940s - Prices & Examples
• What did they wear? Gas masks for all
• What is Utility Wear?
• The Front Line of British WWII Fashion
• World War II and Fashion: The Birth of the New Look (PDF)
• The impact of World War II on women’s fashion in the United States and Britain (PDF)
• The History of Fashion WWI to WWII
• Women’s Shoes in 1940s
• Authentic WWII Era Hairstyle & How To
• United States Army Uniforms in World War II
• World War II German Uniform
• List of World War II Uniforms and Clothing
• Nazi Style
• LIFE.com - Fashion in Post-War Paris

Dialogue

• WWII US Naval Dictionary
• Glossary of German Military Terms
• Military Slang: Terms Used By Soldiers in WWII
• FUBAR F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition: Soldier Slang of World War II (General Military)
• Military Slang For WWII
• List of Ethnic Slurs by Ethnicity
• The Racial Slur Database - Germans
• Morse Code
• Military Time Chart for 24 Hour Time Clock
• Converting Standard Time to Military Time
• WW2 Civilian Slang
• Teen Slang of the 1940s
• 1940s Slang
• Forties Slang
• Words That Were: 1940–1949 (Canada)

Law Enforcement & Crimes

• New Jersey State Police - History: 1940’s
• New York State Police - History: 1940’s
• Anaheim Police Department - History: 1940
• Academia.edu - British Police Training in the 1940s and 1950s
• Art Theft and Looting During World War II
• Rape During the Occupation of Germany
• War Rape in World War II
• Allied War Crimes During World War II
• Nazi Medical Experiments
• World War II Crimes
• Nazi War Crimes
• German War Crimes Against Soviet Civilians
• Nazi Crimes Against Soviet POWs
• Execution of Women by the Nazi during World War II
• World War II and the Holocaust
• World War Two - German Prisoner of War Camps
• List of WWII POW (Prisoner of War) Camps in Germany
• German Prisoners of War in the United States
• Japanese Prisoners of War in WWII
• Sexual Slavery - Germany During WWII
• German Military Brothels in World War II
• Rape, Murder and Genocide: Nazi War Crimes as Described by German Soldiers
• 1940s Crimes
• History of Drug Abuse: The 40’s
• 25 Vintage Police Record Photographs (Photos)
• Grisly Crime Scene Photography of 1940s New York

historywars:

1. Listen to your instructor

The commands given by army gymnastic staff instructors should be followed at all times, not simply because they are senior non-commissioned officers, or because their physique is a clear sign of their prowess at demonstrating physical training. Their experience and valuable knowledge will help guide you, motivate you, and instil a sense of self-belief that you have been trained, not just to be fit, but to be fighting fit!

2. Keep it interesting

Physical training needn’t be boring. It is true that the training tables produced by the army gymnastic staff will become progressively more demanding, so recruits and trained soldiers alike will be pushed to achieve their optimum physical potential. However, time can be set aside during the physical training sessions for games such as Indian club relay-races, wrestling for pegs, and bomb ball, which are not only fun and add a competitive element to training, but also provide practical application of the exercises from the training tables.

3. Don’t run before you can walk

Physical training tables have been developed using scientific principles and in-depth knowledge of human physiology. With this in mind, make sure you do not skip a table and hope to make it up another day. They have been designed to be progressive, and the completion of one table will ensure you are ready to continue with the next, steadily improving your physical development.

4. Be realistic

The amount of time available for physical and recreational training will vary depending on where you are located – those soldiers in the trenches will clearly not have the same access as those in the rear to space and equipment to carry out certain activities. Training tables have been developed to allow these soldiers to perform exercises throughout the day as the opportunity arises. No need to worry though, your instructor will not announce to the Germans when you are exercising! Commands relating to your exercises will be performed by a show of fingers.

5. Training for sport is training for war

Sports and games are the natural way to train for war. Football, cricket, boxing, etc mimic battle, and develop the qualities needed for war. But participation in sport and games should be voluntary, as the voluntary spirit is the spirit of ‘one more effort’.

6. Stick it!

What compels a man in war? The ‘fighting spirit’ of course – but what does this mean? Is it dashing over the top? No, it is ‘sticking it’ – sticking it to the hardships of war, sticking it when you are injured, sticking it when you are sick, sticking it when you’re tired or have heard bad news or are on the back foot.

And how is this fighting spirit indoctrinated? Through a soldier’s participation in games. If you are hit by a punch in a boxing bout, do you bow down and walk away? No, you clench your teeth, hide your feelings from your opponent and fight back. That is the fighting spirit; that is sticking it!

7. Make it count

Physical training and bayonet training, both under the control of army gymnastic staff instructors, are carried out for the benefit of you, the soldier, but more importantly for the soldiers either side of you.

It is essential that a soldier takes advantage of the opportunities to carry out such training, and when doing so, makes every exercise and every attack performed on a bayonet training dummy count.

As the bayonet training manual says, “each dummy must be regarded as an actual armed opponent”, and each armed opponent will become an actual dummy when he meets the British soldier.

8. Improvise

As with nearly every aspect of military life, there are times that the soldier will have to improvise to carry out their physical and bayonet training. The exercises compiled in the training tables provide enough scope for an instructor to supplement or improvise the necessary equipment required to carry out the exercise.

When the apparatus cannot be improvised, many of the exercises may be completed regardless. When bayonet fencing rifles are in short supply, use sticks. When no assault course exists, simply fill hessian sacks with straw and soil, and suspend the sack from a rope hanging from a tree. By being resourceful, your training continues.

9. Too sick to train?

At times you may become injured or sick and unable to train. While this may be frustrating, it is important that you adhere to the medical staff’s advice and only conduct exercises that are suited to your current situation. Remedial training tables have been developed to allow those suffering from constipation and slight stomach troubles, for example. The exercises are not severe and can be beneficial, but if there is any question of ulcers or diarrhoea they should not be performed.

10. LISTEN TO YOUR INSTRUCTOR!

This point cannot be stressed more emphatically. The gymnastic staff instructors and assistant instructors are experts in physical conditioning. Their training is scientific in nature, and their knowledge of human physiology and anatomy is second only to medical professionals.