Download WWII

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
Germany Started It!!
Germany Starts the War
 Hitler made non-aggression pact with Russia 1939 (agreed to not attack each other and to
divide Poland between them)
 Hitler INVADED Poland successfully on Sept. 1,
1939 and eastern Poland was taken by Russia (as
planned)
 Hitler’s new military tactic was BLITZKRIEG
(lightning war)
Phony War
 Phony war (Sitzkrieg – sitting war) September of
1939-April 1940
 British and French Troops mobilized to the
Maginot Line (French-German border)
 Germans were opposite them at the Siegfried Line
 Ended when Hitler invaded and took Denmark,
then Norway
Invasion of France: May 1940
 Germans moved through Belgium into the ARDENNES
(heavily wooded forest) as they advanced, reaching
the N coast of France in 10 days
 May 26, 1940 – Allied forces trapped between the city
of Lille and the Atlantic Ocean
 Evacuation of Dunkirk-British naval ships along with
private vessels (fishing boats, yachts, and anything
else that floated) crossed the English Channel under
heavy fire and rescued the troops trapped on the
beaches (ONE OF THE MOST HEROIC ACTS OF
THE WAR)
Invasion of France: May 1940
(cont’d)
 June 1940-France fell in 14 days
 Germany controlled northern France directly
 Puppet Government (under German oversight) was
set up in Vichy (southern France)
 Resistance or Free France under Charles de Gaulle
was set up in Great Britain
Battle of Britain
 Hitler’s Strategies : Battle of Britain (BLITZ) and Operation Sea
Lion June 1940-May 1941
 Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain
 Luftwaffe bombed airbases and factories to soften up England for a
land invasion
 Even though they were greatly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, British
RAF did stop the Luftwaffe due to 2 secret weapons
 Enigma-code breaking machine (translated German secret messages)
 Radar- tracked incoming Luftwaffe raids and RAF scrambled to
intercept them.
 Operation Sea Lion – Knock out the RAF first (Blitz) then land
250,000 German troops on Great Britain
 Continued until May 10, 1941 when a stunned Hitler realized that
British resistance would force him to call off his plans to invade Britain
Triple Axis
 Japan joined the Axis powers –Hitler declared
Triple Axis-Rome-Berlin-Tokyo
Africa Campaign
 Africa Campaign -- Feb, 1941
 Commander Erwin Rommel (Desert Fox) and German
tank forces (Afrika Korps) swept across North Africa in an
attempt to seize Egypt and the Suez Canal
 Attacked British at Agheila (near Alexandria) and won
 British forces retreated 500 miles to the east to Tobruk,
Algeria
Operation Barbarossa
 Hitler’s next major move --- Operation Barbarossa (June
22,1941-December,1941)
 Invasion of the Soviet Union(used same route and timing as
Napoleon)
 Communists (Soviet Union) joined the Allies (democracies) and
fought back against the Germans which allowed the British time to
recover from the Blitz and strengthen forces
 Russians used scorched-earth policy as they retreated 500 miles into
Russia (like Napoleon)
 Battle of Leningrad- People of Leningrad held out against the Germans
even though they were starving.
 Battle of Stalingrad- First Allied victory in February of 1942
 Hitler’s troops were not allowed to retreat, had nothing but light-weight
summer uniforms, and thousands froze to death (like Napoleon’s
troops)
Atlantic Charter
 Atlantic Charter
 Roosevelt and Churchill drew up agreement for the
following provisions:
 Self government-All peoples were entitled to choose
 Economic cooperation was intended to raise the
world’s standard of living
 Ended the use of armed forces to settle international
disputes
 SERVED AS ALLIES’ PEACE PLAN AT END OF WW II
US Enters War!!
 Japanese-US relations worsened in summer of
1941
 US gradually shut off shipping to Japan-Iron and
Steel scraps
 Japan had taken Manchuria during the RussoJapanese War and now used it as a base to attack
China
 Japan also took SE Asia
 Japan demanded that US stop aiding China
 Japan demanded that US resume trade with them.
US Enters War!! (cont’d)
 Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941
 Japan attacked the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor under the
direction of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in order to have no
opposition in the Pacific
 US lost most of their Pacific Fleet
 US held Philippine Islands were attacked on the same day
 Bataan Death March – American and Filipino prisoners (150,000)
were forcibly marched to their detention camp and many died or
were executed on the way
 US Congress declared war on Japan on December 8th and
joined the Allied Powers
 President Roosevelt referred to December 7, 1941 as a “date
that will live in infamy”
Victory in Europe! (1942-1945)
 North Africa to Italy
 Rommel took Tobruk from the Allies in June 1942
 October 1942-British Army under General Montgomery
(Monty) defeated the Germans and Italians in a surprise attack
at El Alamein (west of Alexandria)
 Nov 1942 Allied forces under American General Eisenhower
invaded North Africa and moved eastward during OPERATION
TORCH
 May 1943 General Rommel’s (Desert Fox) Afrika Korps were
defeated by Eisenhower and Monty
 Sept 1943 Allied troops began the invasion of Sicily and Italy
Victory in Europe! (cont’d)
 Russian Counter offensive
 Battle of Stalingrad –Jan 1943 Soviets defeated the
German army-1st Allied victory in Europe and PUT
GERMANY ON THE DEFENSIVE FOR THE FIRST
TIME
 Russians began to drive the German armies back
through Eastern Europe (July 1944 as far as Warsaw,
Poland)
 1945-Russians reached Eastern Germany and
approached Berlin on May 1st
Victory in Europe! (cont’d)
 Invasion of France (D-Day) Operation Overlord
 June 6, 1944 American and British forces commanded
by General Eisenhower crossed the English Channel
from Britain and landed at Normandy in Northern
France, suffered great casualties but still managed to
secure a position on the beach and then moved inland
against the Germans
 German Army was well entrenched along the French Belgium Coast and fought the Allied advance fiercely
 Allies liberated Paris in July of 1944
 Allied forces moved towards Germany from the west
while the Soviet Army advanced from the east, which
created a 2-front war (Hitler’s worse nightmare)
Victory in Europe! (cont’d)
 Battle of the Bulge-Germans pushed through the Ardennes
in a final attempt to break Allied supply lines
 Germans drove a 50 mile wedge into Allied Lines (the
Bulge) but were eventually pushed back by the Allies
 April 25, 1945 Soviets surrounded Berlin, arrived before the
Americans and took the city
 May 1, 1945 Hitler committed suicide
 May 6, 1945- Americans entered Berlin.
 May 7, 1945 General Eisenhower accepted Germany’s
surrender and V-E Day (Victory in Europe) was May 8th
when the surrender was officially signed in Berlin
Victory in the Pacific!!
(1942-1945)
 April 1942 – 16 bombers under the command of Lieutenant
Colonel Jimmy Doolittle bombed Tokyo and other major
Japanese cities
 Little damage was done but the raids showed that Japan itself
could be attacked
 First Japanese losses were May – June 1942
 Battle of the Coral Sea (May 1942) where American and Australian
naval fleets attacked
 Battle of Midway (June 1942)-Yamamoto was onboard one of the
many ships that were sunk by American ships under Admiral Nimitz
 Nimitz was outnumbered 4-1 and still managed a victory using
aircraft carriers and planes
 This victory marked the beginning of the Allied Offensive in the
Pacific
Victory in the Pacific!!
(cont’d)
 August 1942-Gen. Macarthur adopted the strategy of “Island
Hopping” (strategy to take undefended islands closer to Japan)
to protect American forces as they began to drive towards
Japan
 US took only islands they needed and faced extreme
resistance but the US seized:
 Battle of Guadalcanal-Solomon Islands—US and Japan suffered
huge casualties
 Gilbert, Marshall and Carolina Islands and Guam
 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf-victory marked US return to Philippine
Islands
 After Leyte Japan resorted to using kamikaze (suicide) pilots to
crash into US ships to sink them
 January-Feb 1945 captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa- put US air
force within bombing range of the Japanese Islands
Atomic Bomb
 Atomic Bomb and Surrender of Japan
 Allies dropped leaflets written in Japanese which urged people
to surrender and warned them of a terrible weapon
 US President Truman decided to drop the bombs in order to
end the war quickly
 Aug 6, 1945 Dropped 1st Atomic Bomb on HiroshimaJapanese government refused to surrender
 Aug 9, 1945 Dropped 2nd Atomic bomb on Nagasaki
 Japan Surrendered unconditionally on August 14th 1945
 September 2, 1945 General Douglas MacArthur accepted the
Japanese surrender aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo
Bay
 V-J Day – Victory in Japan – Sept 2, 1945 marked the end of
the Pacific campaign and the end of World War II
 THE US ARMY OCCUPIED AND CONTROLLED JAPAN
UNTIL THEY BECAME A DEMOCRACY.
Holocaust
 Hitler blamed the Jews for the economic depression in
Germany
 November, 1938 – KRISTALLNACHT (Night of broken
glass) Jewish people and their property were viciously
attacked by Hitler’s storm troopers which marked the
beginning of official oppression of Jews
 Ghettos – sections of cities where Jews were interred in
Poland
 Other targeted groups were Poles, gypsies, Russians and
anyone deemed mentally or physically unfit
Holocaust (cont’d)
 Concentration Camps – used as a source of slave
labor in Germany and Poland -- eventually became
extermination camps equipped with gas chambers and
crematoriums
 Final Solution- August 1941- Hitler began wholesale
genocide of non Aryan peoples specifically Jews
 Six million Jews and 6 million non-Jews were
exterminated
 Allied troops liberated concentration camps as they
moved through Europe and exposed they world to the
horrors of the camps