Men of all ages, from 16–60 were conscripted into this army. Children as young as 8 were reported as having been captured by American troops, with boys aged 12 and under manning artillery units. Girls were also being placed in armed combat, operating anti-aircraft, or flak, guns alongside boys.
Child Soldiers
During World War II, child insurgents between the ages of 11 and 18 served as full-fledged members of the Polish Home Army.
Calvin Leon Graham (April 3, 1930 – November 6, 1992) was the youngest U.S. serviceman to serve and fight during World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Navy from Houston, Texas on August 15, 1942, at the age of 12.
Soldier Boy (Russian: Солдатик, romanized: Soldatik) is a 2019 Russian-language film. It is based on the real-life story of the youngest soldier in World War II, Sergei Aleshkov, who was only 6 years old.
The youngest known soldier of World War I was Momčilo Gavrić, who joined the 6th Artillery Division of the Serbian Army at the age of 8, after Austro-Hungarian troops in August 1914 killed his parents, grandmother, and seven of his siblings.
The Allies won World War 2.
After a long six years at war, The Allies won the war when Germany surrendered. However, the war still went on in places such as the USA and Japan. Japan finally surrendered on 2nd September, 1945. This was when World War 2 officially ended for all countries.
Baldwin resident Joseph Argenzio, Jr. was the youngest American soldier to fight on D-Day | Herald Community Newspapers | www.liherald.com.
Full conscription of men
On the day Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, Parliament immediately passed a more wide-reaching measure. The National Service (Armed Forces) Act imposed conscription on all males aged between 18 and 41 who had to register for service.
Australia was the only English-speaking country which had such a system. The scheme established compulsory naval or military training for all Australian males between the ages of 12 and 26 who were British subjects.
The Draft and WWII
Those who were selected from the draft lottery were required to serve at least one year in the armed forces. Once the U.S. entered WWII, draft terms extended through the duration of the fighting.
The people listed below are, or were, the last surviving members of notable groups of World War II veterans, as identified by reliable sources. About 70 million people fought in World War II between 1939 and 1945 and, as of 2022, there are still approximately 167,000 living veterans in the United States alone.
During the Holocaust, children were especially vulnerable to death under the Nazi regime. An estimated 1.5 million children, nearly all Jewish, were murdered during the Holocaust, either directly by or as a direct consequence of Nazi actions.
Children played for hours because they did not have video games or television. More often than not they made up their own games too. In the evening children played cards, chutes and ladders, candy land and checkers. The boys enjoyed playing with army figures, while the girls liked the brand new Barbie doll.
The Japanese Imperial Army mobilized students aged 14–17 years in Okinawa island for the Battle of Okinawa. This mobilization was conducted by the ordinance of the Ministry of Army, not by law. The ordinances mobilized the student for a volunteer soldier for form's sake.
Survivors. A few thousand D-Day veterans may be still alive; the youngest are in their late 90s. A few dozen are in Normandy for the 79th anniversary.
Taking a wider view, during the Battle of Normandy over 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded or went missing. This figure includes around 210,000 Allied casualties, with nearly 37,000 killed amongst the ground forces and a further 16,000 deaths amongst the Allied air forces.
The bloodiest single day in the history of the United States military was June 6, 1944, with 2,500 soldiers killed during the Invasion of Normandy on D-Day. The second-highest single-day toll was the Battle of Antietam with 2,108 dead.
One of them was Sergei “Seryozha” Aleshkov, the youngest soldier of World War II.
In 1944, an Allied army crossed from Britain to free France from Nazi rule. One year later, Allied armies invaded Germany, forcing the Germans to surrender. After nuclear attacks on Japan's major cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan also surrendered to Allied forces in August the same year. World War 2 had ended.
The Allies won World War 1.
After a long four years at war, The Allies won the war. The Allies were also known as The Entente Powers.
Tom 'Diver' Derrick VC DCM was Australia's most famous fighting soldier of World War II. Derrick fought in five campaigns, won the highest medals for bravery, and died of wounds sustained while leading his men in the war's last stages.
Human rights law declares 18 as the minimum legal age for recruitment and use of children in hostilities. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law – treaty and custom – and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.
John Condon, from Waterford, Ireland: incorrectly believed to have been the youngest Allied soldier killed (age 14), but later found to have been age 18 at his death.