30 nations

At the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of Poland, the United Kingdom, and France as well as their dependent states, such as British India….Allied combatants with governments-in-exile:

• Poland.
• Czechoslovakia.
• Norway.
• Netherlands.
• Belgium.
• Luxembourg.
• Free France.
• Ethiopia.

In fact, many nations were touched by the conflict, but the main combatants can be grouped into two opposing factions– Germany, Japan, and Italy where the Axis powers. France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union were the Allied powers.

Much of the reason for Spanish reluctance to join the war was due to Spain’s reliance on imports from the United States. Spain was still recovering from its civil war and Franco knew his armed forces would not be able to defend the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco from a British attack.

Switzerland

The Japanese Invasion of Hawaii was the first major land, sea and air engagement of World War II. The Japanese struck with a force of six fleet carriers and an invasion force of two Infantry divisions….Japanese Invasion of Hawaii (Days of Infamy)

10 Countries That Are Impossible To Invade

• 10 Bhutan. This tiny country in South-East Asia has next to nothing when it comes to self-defense.
• 9 Iran. Iran is one of the most powerful countries in the Middle-East.
• 8 Australia. Again, Australia’s geography is its biggest immunity against invaders.
• 7 Switzerland.
• 6 North Korea.
• 5 United Kingdom.
• 4 Canada.
• 3 Japan.

British airpower was dispersed, and unable to concentrate against the Japanese landings. By contrast, Hawaii is some 3,900 miles from Japan, and almost 2,300 miles from Truk, which were the only staging areas developed enough for such an undertaking.

It is no secret that Japanese tourism in Hawaii is alive and well for a number of reasons: because of the well-established Japanese community in Hawaii, the relatively short 7-8 hour flight from Tokyo, and the availability of Western goods at prices unbeatable compared to what they are in Japan, and of course the …

FDR vetoed this approach—enabled, in part, by the American victory at Midway, which established that existing Allied forces in the Pacific could take on Japan. Victory at Midway would not have won Japan the war, but could well have given the Second World War a very different turn.

They would have been defeated. Japan could not supply their troops over that distance. The US Army had several bases on Hawaii, and the Navy, while hurt by Pearl Harbor was not decimated. An invasion attempt on Hawaii would have been military suicide for Japan, even in 1941.

Without the American entry into World War II, it’s possible Japan would have consolidated its position of supremacy in East Asia and that the war in Europe could have dragged on for far longer than it did.

Cracking the Japanese Naval Code Unknown to the Japanese, U.S. Navy cryptanalysts had cracked the Japanese naval code and determined that the primary target of the forthcoming Japanese offensive was Midway. Moreover, the Japanese believed they had sunk the carrier USS Yorktown during the recent Battle of the Coral Sea.

Officially, the United States did not favor any Axis member, but prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, there were some American businessmen linked with Japanese commerce and supporters of the Japanese cause in the country.

If the Soviet Union/USSR joined the Axis in WW2, it would have been a catastrophe. This meant that the majority of the German troops were fighting the Russians specifically by the end of the war. Take the Eastern Front away from the Germans, and the Axis would have one of the strongest land armies ever known.

Ireland was a poor country with a very small army in 1939. If it had joined the Axis it would have been the first priority for Britain to drive out the Germans. Britain had a strong foothold in the North. Post War Ireland would have suffered at the hand of the victorious British who would have seen this as a betrayal.

The Nazis allocated 50,000 German troops for the invasion of Ireland. An initial force of about 4,000 crack troops, including engineers, motorised infantry, commando and panzer units, was to depart France from the Breton ports of L’orient, Saint-Nazaire and Nantes in the initial phase of the invasion.

Benito Mussolini declared on 1 November 1936 that all other European countries would from then on rotate on the Rome–Berlin axis, thus creating the term “Axis”. The war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers and the dissolution of their alliance.

Many British ships were repaired in Irish shipyards. Despite being frequently encountered as rumours, no U-boats ever used Ireland as a refuelling base.

Ireland remained neutral during World War II. However, tens of thousands of Irish citizens, who were by law British subjects, fought in the Allied armies against the Nazis, mostly in the British army. Senators John Keane and Frank MacDermot also favoured Allied support.

Five thousand Irish soldiers who swapped uniforms to fight for the British against Hitler went on to suffer years of persecution. One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen – but he wears his medals in secret.

At the outbreak of the war, most Irish people, regardless of political affiliation, supported the war in much the same way as their British counterparts, and both nationalist and unionist leaders initially backed the British war effort.

By May 1941, the German Air Force had bombed numerous British cities, including Belfast in Northern Ireland during “The Blitz”. As part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland was at war, but the independent state of Ireland was neutral.