Download WWII

WWII:
A Summary
Student Objectives
• Understand the main events of WW11.
Recap….
• WWII started in 1939 after Germany invaded
Poland.
Allies and Axis
The Allies
• Britain
• France
• Poland
• Belgium, Netherlands &
other European countries
• Commonwealth
countries e.g. Australia,
New Zealand & Canada
• Countries in the British
Empire e.g. India.
• Joined by the USSR and
the USA in 1941.
The Axis
•Germany
•Italy
•Japan
Slow Start
• After Germany’s initial attack on
Poland, little happened in the next
few months – ‘phoney war’.
• Countries began to have a false
sense of security and anticlimax.
• However, it didn’t last long as
fighting began again in early 1940
and brought a series of brilliant
German victories.
The War Heats Up…
• April 9th 1940, Nazi troops invaded
Norway and Denmark.
• The Norwegians resisted the invaders
until June 9th, however the Danes
surrendered within hours.
• May 10th German troops invaded
Western Europe and troops flooded
into Netherlands and Belgium (both
surrendered).
Blitzkrieg
• Massive offensive that the
German’s launched on
France’s Belgian border.
• They reached the English
Channel within a week.
• Soon after, the French
Capital, Paris, fell to the
Germans on June 14th. Hitler
was ecstatic and had only
lost 27,000 German lives in
the process (better than the
million lost in WWI).
The Battle for Britain
• By late summer 1940, most of Europe
was under German control. A plan
was then hatched to sweep away
Hitler’s final enemy, Britain.
• Codename – Operation Sea Lion, the
German Airforce, the Luftwaffe would
try to gain control of the of the skies
over the English Channel.
The Blitz
• Just as the Luftwaffe was looking like it
was winning control of the Channel, the
RAF bombed Berlin.
• Hitler, enraged, immediately ordered the
bombing of London.
• On Sept 7th, a thousand German bombers
and fighters attacked the British capital,
killing around 500 people.
• London was bombed nightly.
Eastern Europe
• With Western Europe defeated and
Britain bloodied, Hitler began to plan
the invasion of Russia.
• However, Germany’s own ally, Italy
did not commit to Hitler’s war in
Europe until they were sure Germany
would win.
North Africa
• Italy launched an attack on Egypt in
September 1940 with the British
counterattacking in December 1940.
• Hitler formed the ‘Afrika Korps’ led by
General Rommel who was known as
‘Desert Fox’.
• Turning point was the Battle of El Alamein
in late 1942 - Axis troops driven from
Egypt back to Tunisia.
• Axis surrendered in May 1943.
Rats of Tobruk
• Name given by Germans to Australian
soldiers who held the Libyan port of
Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during
the Siege of Tobruk in World War II.
Operation Barbarossa
• June 22nd 1941, the greatest
invasion in the history of the
world began. It was
codenamed Operation
Barbarossa.
• 3 million German troops and
thousands of tanks and planes
poured into the Soviet Border.
• They wanted to conquer the
world’s largest country by the
end of summer and they very
nearly did………
Barbarossa
• German’s targeted Leningrad, Moscow,
Stalingrad and Caucasus oilfields.
• Russians carried out ‘scorched earth’ policy.
• Battle for Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest
and most important of the war. Germans
surrendered in 1943.
• Hitler thought that the Soviet Union would “fall
like a leaf”. It was his greatest mistake and
eventual undoing.
Pearl Harbour
• December 7th 1941, Japanese planes made a
dramatic attack on the American naval base at
Pearl Harbour.
• As a result of the Japanese attacks, 18 warships
were sunk or damaged, 180 aircraft were
destroyed and 2,400 Americans were killed.
• This changed the war dramatically, became
global!
• America declared war on Japan and Japan’s
allies, Germany and Italy. declared war on
America.
The Tide Turns
• As Germany began to lose in
Russia and across Europe, and
Hitler’s world began to collapse
around him, by Feb 1945, Hitler
complained that Italy had been
“more of a service to our enemy
than to ourselves”.
• Italy made peace with the allies
after the country rose up against
their leader Mussolini (not wanting
to be involved in war).
D-Day
• From 1941 until June 1944, most of
the fighting took place in the Soviet
Union and the Pacific.
• D-Day was when Allies took action
and invaded Normandy to conquer
Germany.
Invasion of Germany
• The Soviets began to fight back
against Germany and with the help
of other Allied countries, Germany
looked like they would finally be
defeated…..
• Germany was in chaos! Hitler was
directing what was left of his army
from a bunker in Berlin!
• Hitler gave orders to destroy
everything in the allies paths –
bridges, hospitals, power stations
etc.
The Final Act
• Hitler married his girlfriend Eva Braun and
on April the 30th 1945 as Germany was
growing ever closer to defeat, a
devastated Hitler took cyanide and shot
himself.
• A week later, without its leader, Germany
had lost the war and war in Europe was
declared over (May 8th 1945).
The War in Japan
• Throughout the summer of 1945,
Japanese forces resisted their
inevitable defeat with ferocity.
• Allies decided that atomic and
plutonium bombs provided the
opportunity to destroy their fierce
enemy in a single flash.
• Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
• Japan was stunned to respond.
• Finally on August 15th, fighting stopped
and a surrender was signed on
September 2nd 1945 – six years and a
day after the war had begun.