This is a comprehensive visual guide to this complex conflict in a large folio edition that allows the fine details of the maps to be seen clearly. It plots the exact course of the land, sea and air battles, enabling the reader to trace the ebb and flow of the fortunes of both sides. Using large full color maps, every theater of war is covered. Contents include the land campaigns in Northwest Europe, North Africa, Italy, the Soviet Union, Southeast Asian and the Pacific; the naval war in the Atlantic and Mediterranean; the great carrier battles of the Pacific theater, and the strategic bombing campaigns of Europe and the Pacific, culminating in the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All the maps come with a key to help the reader decipher the action and events. Each of the 180 maps in the book has been specially commissioned by an expert cartographer.