A day of commemorations will begin in Poland
shortly to mark the 70th anniversary
of the outbreak of the 2nd World War.
The first ceremony will take place at dawn
on the Westerplatte peninsula near Gdansk.
Greg Morsbach reports.
70 years ago to the day,
the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein
opened fire on a Polish military
outpost in the Baltic peninsula.
This heralded the start of the Second World War,
a conflict that claimed more than 50 million lives.
70 years old leaders and top officials from nations
such as Germany, Italy, Ukraine, France, the U.S.,
Russia and Poland are reattending a series of ceremonies
on the Polish coast.
Moscow is sending a top-level delegation
with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
scheduled to deliver a speech
commemorating the event seven decades ago.