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WORLD WAR II
THE INVASION OF POLAND
• September 1, 1939
• German forces invaded from the
west, while Soviets invaded from the
east
• The attack forced Britain and France
to honor their alliance with Poland
and declare war on Germany
• By the end of September, however,
Poland had been conquered
• The Soviets also moved against
Finland and the Baltic States
(Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia)
BLITZKRIEG
• During the invasion of Poland,
the Germans debuted a new
military tactic
• Blitzkrieg, or "Lightning
War,” German tactic of
striking with tremendous
speed and force, with the
intention of knocking out
your enemy before they can
react to your attack
GERMANY’S NEXT MOVES
• To secure their northern
border, Germany invaded both
Norway and Denmark,
winning easy victories in the
spring of 1940
• By late spring, Hitler turned
his attention west and invaded
Belgium, Luxembourg, and
the Netherlands in preparation
for attacking France
US RESPONDED BY
DESTROYERS FOR BASES DEAL
• Spring 1940: US agreed
to trade 50 surplus
destroyers (small
warships) to Britain, who
needed them to protect
shipping, in exchange for
allowing the US to build
naval bases in Britishcontrolled territories
THE MIRACLE AT DUNKIRK
• Allied forces had moved into
Belgium to meet the German
advance, but quickly found
themselves cut-off and surrounded
• Allied forces raced to reach the
port of Dunkirk on the English
Channel, their only means of
escaping defeat & capture
• The British were able to safely
evacuate over 300,000 men to
England by using every available
ship in Great Britain, but were
forced to abandon all of their
heavy equipment
THE FALL OF FRANCE
• The evacuation of Allied
troops across the English
Channel left France
undefended
• Germans took Paris on
June 13th and the French
government formally
surrendered on June
22nd, 1940
WINSTON CHURCHILL
• 1874 – 1965 (life)
• 1940-45 & 1951-55 (British Prime
Minister)
• Although Britain now stood alone
against Germany, they remained
defiant, with Churchill vowing “… we
shall defend our Island, whatever
the cost may be, we shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight on the
landing grounds, we shall fight in the
fields and in the streets, we shall
fight in the hills; we shall never
surrender”
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
•
To be able to invade Britain, Germany
would first need to destroy the Royal Air
Force (RAF) and soften beachhead
defenses through aerial bombing
•
From June to October of 1940, an air
battle was waged between the RAF and
the Luftwaffe (German Air Force)
•
Despite being outnumbered, the British
managed to win the air battle, forcing
Hitler to abandon his plans to invade
Britain
•
“Never in the field of human conflict
have so many owed so much to so few.”
- Churchill
“THE BLITZ”
• Sept. 1940 – May 1941
• Sustained bombing campaign by
Germany against major British
cities, targeting British civilians
• London was bombed 57 nights in a
row
• 43,000 civilians killed
• German objective was to instill fear
in the British people in hopes that
they would sue for peace; instead
the British grew more determined to
win the war
• British retaliated with fire-bombing
raids on German cities
LEND-LEASE ACT
• March 1941
• US declared that it would
lend or lease (since it
couldn’t sell due to the
Neutrality Acts) weapons to
nations considered “vital
to the defense of the US”
• US went on to send $40
billion in weapons to Allies
over the course of WWII
HEMISPHERIC DEFENSE ZONE
• To help protect British
shipping, FDR declared the
entire Western Atlantic to be
part of the Western
Hemisphere and thereby
under the protection of the
US per the Monroe Doctrine
• FDR then ordered the US
Navy to patrol this part of the
Atlantic, leading to several
deadly encounters between
US destroyers and German
U-boats
THE ATLANTIC CHARTER
• August 1941
• FDR met with British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill
to lay out a post-war plan
for economic prosperity
• Many question whether or not
this is where FDR promised
Churchill that he would find a
way to get the American
people to support the US
entering the war
THE AXIS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
•
In The Balkans: Italian and German
forces seized control of most of the
Balkan peninsula by late 1941, but
still had to deal with partisan
uprisings, especially in Greece &
Yugoslavia, throughout the war
•
In North Africa: Axis forces fought
mostly British troops in back-and-forth
battles throughout most of 1940,
1941, & 1942; Germany’s inability to
decisively win on the “Southern Front”
of the war would prove costly
OPERATION BARBAROSSA
•
In June 1941, Germany broke the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and attacked
the Soviet Union
•
Stalin was not prepared for the German
attack and the Wehrmacht (German
Army) had made deep advances into
Soviet territory by December
•
Soviet forces resorted to a “scorched
earth” campaign, burning everything of
use to the Germans as they retreated
across the Ukraine
•
Finally, the harsh Russian winter stalled
the Germans, buying the Soviets time to
regroup and stop the German advances
SIEGE OF LENINGRAD
•
Sept. 1941 – Jan. 1944
•
Hitler was obsessed with capturing
the Soviet city of Leningrad due both
to its symbolical importance as the
“City of Lenin” (Lenin had led the
Bolshevik Revolution) and its military
importance as a naval port on the
North Sea
•
1.5 million Soviets died during the
siege, mostly from starvation and
disease; the population resorted to
eating sawdust, boiled leather, rats,
pets, horses, and, eventually, each
other!
BATTLE OF STALINGRAD
July 1942 – February 1943
Bloodiest battle in history
1.5 million killed
Vicious urban warfare as the
Germans and Soviets fought
street by street, building by
building for control of the city
• Soviets eventually encircled the
German army, which was forced to
surrender en masse
• 500,000 Germans captured, but
few of them survived being
imprisoned in the brutal Soviet
gulags (prison camps)
•
•
•
•
THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE
• Jan. 20, 1942
• Nazi leaders met to determine
the “final solution of the
Jewish question”
• Formalized the process for
rounding up and exterminating
the Jewish population of
Europe through the use of
concentration camps and
deth camps
THE HOLOCAUST
• By the time the war was
over, more than 12 million
people had died in the
concentration camps, about
half of them Jews
• The other half were a mix of
other groups the Nazi’s
considered “undesirable”:
Gypsies, Poles, Russians,
uncooperative Catholic priests,
homosexuals, the mentally ill,
& the physically or mentally
handicapped
JAPAN TAKES ADVANTAGE
• 1940 - 41: As war raged in
Europe, Japan occupied
French Indochina
(Vietnam, Laos, &
Cambodia) and positioned
itself to threaten British
colonies and the UScontrolled Philippines
US EMBARGO OF JAPAN
• In response, US cut off
Japan’s access to critical war
materials such as steel and
oil (both of which Japan
bought almost entirely from
America) to put pressure on
Japan to make peace with
China and Britain
• Japan considered this an act
of war and began to plan an
attack on US military facilities
in Hawaii and the Philippines
PEARL HARBOR
• December 7, 1941
• Japan launched a surprise attack
against US naval base in Hawaii
• 4 battleships destroyed, 4 more
seriously damaged, but Japan
failed to destroy US aircraft
carriers
• Support vessels and facilities
suffered massive damage
• 2403 Americans killed, 1178
wounded
• Japanese lost only 29 aircraft
and 65 men
US DECLARES WAR
• Dec. 8, 1941: US and
Britain declared war
against Japan
• Dec. 11, 1941: Germany
and Italy declared war
against the US, believing
that by helping Japan
against the US, Japan
would help them against
the Soviets
JAPAN KEEPS ROLLING
• Japan immediately
launched successful
attacks against US
colonies at Guam and the
Philippines and British
colonies of Malaya,
Singapore, Hong Kong,
and Singapore, as well as
the independent nation of
Thailand
JAPAN IN THE PHILIPPINES
• US forces in the Philippines
were forced to surrender by May
1942
• US Gen. Douglas MacArthur was
ordered to evacuate to Australia,
but vowed “I shall return”
• Japanese forced prisoners to
march 65 miles in tropical heat
without food, water, or medical
care, and while enduring physical
abuse, to a prison camp – about
18,000 of the 78,000 prisoners
died on this “Bataan Death
March”
DOOLITTLE RAID
• April 18, 1942
• American bombers, under the
command of Col. James
Doolittle, mounted a daring
mission to launch from aircraft
carrier to bomb Tokyo in
retaliation for Pearl Harbor
• Mainly a public relations move
to improve morale; bombings
did no major damage
BATTLE OF CORAL SEA
• May 4 – 8, 1942
• US Navy had broken Japanese
codes and learned of Japan’s
intention to seize New Guinea as a
step towards attacking Australia
• US sent 2 aircraft carriers to
intercept the Japanese in the Coral
Sea
• First naval battle in history fought
entirely with aircraft
• U.S. lost an aircraft carrier, but
prevented the Japanese invasion
TURNING POINT IN WAR
IN PACIFIC!
• June 4 – 7, 1942
• Japanese attack on U.S. island of
Midway was intercepted and turned
back
• 4 Japanese aircraft carriers were
sunk, a loss from which Japan
would never recover
• Japan would not be able to mount
any offensive attacks for the
remainder of the war – they would
have to try to defend what they held
from US invasion