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WWII
History 12
Ms Leslie
Technology
 Items for war had to be produced on a large
scale quickly
 Nature of war had changed to be air
dominated
 Aerial bombing did not slow production Germany’s production increased until 1944
 Can only slow production through embargos
 Airplane and tank more important tool stalemates a thing of the past
 Competition increased to get the fastest
and most agile with the biggest payload
 Nature of war different
 WWI - little territory gain
 WWII - Massive territory covered
Radar and Sonar
 Crucial in the fight of the Battle of
Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic
 British mathematicians were crucial in
breaking Enigma codes
Communications
 Radio used for the first time for mass
communication
 Used radio to rally the home front
 Propaganda very important - conserve,
buy bonds, control gossip
Who’s to blame?
1.Allied powers for being spineless and
allowing appeasement
2.Hitler being overly aggressive
3.WWI and WWII are just the same war.
Europe just took a break
German Quick facts
1.After WWI, still far more powerful then
neighbours
2.Has a growing population
3.Not prepared for a long drawn out war.
4.Hitler was aware of the effects of WWI
on Germany – Social cohesion.
5.Hitler has many enemies – social
democrats, Jews and Roman Catholics
Blitzkrieg
 Short, intense attacks. Air craft would
attack first, followed by Panzers
 Short wars = less drain on economy
 Allowed German civilian life remain
normal until 1942 when the USSR fights
back
The Polish Campaign
 German commander = Gudenrian
 Deploy 40 infantry divisions 14
mechanized divisions
 Attack starts Sept 1, 1939.
 Polish airforce is flattened and they
have no motorized divisions - still had a
Calvary
 With in 1 week, the Nazi army is
outside Warsaw.
 Sept 17 USSR invades from the East
 Sept 18, Polish gov’t flees into exile.
 Polish troops in Warsaw continue
fighting bitterly until Sept 28, some
units outside the city last until Oct 5.
 But it was futile - Poland was no more
The Phony War
 Sept 1939 - April 1940
 No attack on the Western Front Until
Hitler’s invasion of Norway
 German and French troops hunkered
down in the Siegfried line or Maginot
Line.
 Both waiting for a major push
Baltic States and the RussoFinnish War
 Part of the Nazi-Soviet (MolotovRibbentrop) pact
 Oct 1939 Soviet troops enter Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania. Finland refuses
 Nov 30, USSR starts the Winter War
with Finland.
Winter War






Soviets only successful in far north
USSR inadequate and inferior troops
Difficult terrain
Bad communications
Invasion declared illegal by League of Nations
Feb 1, 1940 Red Army attacks again and
Finland falls in March and signs the Moscow
Peace treaty with USSR.
Beginning of Atlantic War
 U-boats sank 110 vessels in first 4
months
 Both sides laying mines
 Soon the German surface fleet is sunk
or in retreat - never a significant force
Towards Scandinavia
 A British destroyer chases the German
vessel ‘Altmark’ in to a Norwegian fjord and
rescued 300 British prisoners on board.
 This violation of Norwegian neutrality
convinced Hitler that the Allies could not be
trusted to stay out of Scandinavia.
Scandinavia
1940
 March - French and
British navies mine
the waters and land
in Norweigen Ports.
 April 9 Germans
land in Oslo,
Kristiansand,
stavanger, Bergen
and Trondhelm
 Norwegian resistance was quickly over
come since Norwegian forces were not even
mobilized and local Nazis led by Vidkun
Quisling helped the invaders.
 Quisling is despised by Norwegians and his
name becomes a term to describe ‘traitors’
 Allies landed on the coast but it was too
little, too late.
 Allies continue to fight until May but it’s
futile
 Demark in attacked at the same time,
complete German success came with in
hours.
Holland, Belgium and France
 May 10, 1940 the assault in the west
begins
 Germany decides to avoid the Maginot
Line by going through Belgium.
 They must go through Holland first
 The Dutch have a small, ill trained
army, an air force of only 130 ish and
they loose 50% of it
 Luftwaffe bombs airfields
 Parachute troops into key locations to
secure bridges
 The main transportation in Holland is
the rivers, take those and the Dutch
navy is stuck.
 May 14, German tanks outside of
Rotterdam.
 Decide to use the destruction of the city
to shock politicians in to surrendering
 City is flattened, 30,000 die
 Same day, gov’t flees to UK and orders
troops to lay down arms
 Skirmishes end on the 16
 Blitzkrieg takes the country in 4 days
Belgium and France
 Again paratroopers near bridges in
Belgium
 British and French armies slow the
advance in the North, but German
advancement in the South make that
position difficult to maintain
 Von Runstedt takes German army
through the supposedly impassable
Ardennes.
 May 12 - over the Meuse River
 Rapid German advance = confusion
behind French lines.
 Nazi armies able to surround British
expeditionary Force (BEF)
 Allies cut in half, Germans take Ports
 May 21, Britain strikes back at Dunkirk Successful and shakes up the German
high command
 British tanks match Nazi tanks
 Attempt at Dunkirk fails because Nazis use
anti-aircraft guns
 May 23rd, Evacuations at Bollogne start,
4,000 troops at first, another 1,000 later by
fishermen
 Britain has suffered worst defeat ever
 Winston Churchill become Prime Minister
 May 23 - BEF and French forces are
split
 BEF near Lille, 40 miles from Dunkirk
 French are further south
 German Panzers are 10 miles from
Dunkirk
 "Nothing but a miracle can save the BEF
now," wrote General Brooke in his diary.
 On 23 May, he put the army on half-rations.
In Britain, 26 May was designated a "Day
of National Prayer" for the Army
 WWII is about to end in German victory
But…..
 May 24 - Hitler inexplicably halts the
attack against the BEF
 Might want to be saving his troops to
attack France
 This event leads to the escape of
hundreds of thousands of troops
Evacuation of Dunkirk
 May 25 it starts
 While being pounded from the Luftwaffe,
120,000 BEF pulled out by May 30th
 Luftwaffe is also dropping leaflets reading
“British soldiers! Look at the map: it gives
your true situation! Your troops are entirely
surrounded — stop fighting! Put down your
arms!”
 The Allied soldiers mostly used these as
toilet paper.
 June 2nd - 224,000 more BEF
evacuated and 94,000 French
 By June 4 it was over - 338,000 troops
in Britain while their equipment is on
the beach
 Dunkirk film part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Reasons for success
 RAF and Royal Navy
 900+ fishing vessels and private yachts
men
 Waters at Dunkirk are shallow, so battle
ships can’t get close
 Soldiers would wade out into the ocean
and wait for fishing boats to pick them
up and take them to the navy ships
 Showed the solidarity of the British
 Some came as far at the Isle of Man
and Glasgow
 ‘Dunkirk spirit’
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwar
s/wwtwo/launch_ani_fall_france_campa
ign.shtml
Invasion of France
 June 7 - Rommel heads south
 June 9 - Cross the Seine
 June 10 - French Gov’t moved to Tours,
Italy declares war on France
 June 12 - French commander tells
Reynaud France is beaten
 June 14 - Paris falls, Gov’t flees to Vichy
 June 16 - Reynaud resigns and his successor
Petain asks the Germans for armistice
 June 22 - French surrender happened in the
same railway coach, at Compiegne, that the
1918 armistice had been signed in.
 Germany occupied the Northern and Western
coasts, gaining fine submarine bases, and the
French army was demobilized.
 Britain is now alone in the fight against
Germany.
 There are now effectively 3 Frances
 Nazi occupied France in the North
 Vichy France lead by Petain in the
South
 Free France – fighting the war lead by
de Gaulle
Why were the German’s
successful?




Maginot Line useless
France did not use tanks efficiently
German Panzers and Luftwaffe superior.
Germans actually had a smaller army
but awesome leadership
 Allies had out of date ideas - fighting in
an old-fashioned way.
French failures
 French high command obsessed with defense
 Ignored experts like Charles de Gaulle that
tanks should be massed together for rapid
movement
 Airpower ignored
 France not ready for was economically and
psychologically
 France already had a rising fascist movement
Terms of surrender
 Northern France and ports given to
Germany
 French army dissolved
 South France turned into Vichy France collaborates with the Nazis
Britain's reaction?
 Sinks as much as the French navy as it
can so it doesn’t get handed over to
Hitler
Battle of Britain
 Nazis called it Operation Sea lion
 Refers to the air battle over Britian
 Luftwaffe = 2,800 planes RAF 700 and
counting it’s like a 3:1 ratio
 Luftwaffe commanded by Goering who
promised to wipeout the RAF in 4 days
 August 12 - aerial attacks on harbours,
radar stations, aerodromes and
munitions factories
 RAF Spitfires have superior
maneuverability
 Also have better Radar to detect
German fighters still over the Channel
Change in tactics
Aug 24 a German squadron gets lost and
bombs London
Churchill responds by Bombing Berlin
Hitler wants revenge and focuses
bombings on London
Gives the RAF a chances to rest and
rebuild - UK was running out of pilots..
The Blitz
 Refers to the aerial bombardment of
London
 Sept 7 Luftwaffe bombards London in
retaliation for an RAF bombing of Berlin
 London bombed for 57 nights in a row
 Blitz lasts from Sept 1940-May 1941
 127 large night attacks, 71 of which are
in London
 2 million houses destroyed, 60% are in
London
 60,000 civilians die, 87,000 wounded
 The Queen, a teenager at the time,
lives through it all
 Battle For Britain Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
‘We
Can
Take
it’
RAF advantages
 Parachuted pilots land on home soil
 Luftwaffe can only be in the air 60-90
mins
 Britain had superior radar
 1,389 Luftwaffe lost - 792 RAF lost
 Operation Sea lion called off as with out
air superiority any invasion force would
be cut to pieces by the Royal Navy
Results
 Hitler eventually gives up
 First time Hitler fails at conquest!!!
 Prolongs the war - not good for Hitler
 Allies have a European location to
springboard attacks from
In Greece
 June 10, 1940 Italy
declares war and
invaded Greece
 Italy could not handle
the Greek on its own
 Britain helps out Greece
and the Royal Navy
sinks half the Italian
fleet in harbour at
Taranto
 In Greece the Italians
are pushed back to
Albania.
 April 1941, Germany invades Yugoslavia
and Greece to bail out the Italians
 Push through to Athens and push out
the British and the Anzac troops
 May 1941, Crete falls to Germany
 36,000 allied troops die
 Yugoslavia surrenders April 17, Greece
April 27
Operation Barbarossa
 June 1941
 Hitler does not count on the USSR staying out
of the war.
 He invades on the premise it’s always been
part of the plan for the 1,000 year Reich
 Lebensraum
 Wants the Ukraine - Europes ‘Bread Basket’
 Defeat communism - this arch-rival
 Attack a tactical mistake
 3 pronged toward Leningrad in the
North, Moscow in the center and
Ukraine in the South
 3.5 million troops are committed with
3,500 tanks and 5,000 aircraft
 USSR caught off guard - silly since
Stalin was warned - major cities fall
quickly
 Leningrad and Moscow remain out of
reach as Panzers become bogged down
in the rain and mud of October and the
-40 C weather in the winter
Initial attack
 June 22, 1941 - Hitler violates the nonaggression pact with a front line
stretching from the Baltic to Black seas
 2000 miles covered by 153 divisions
 In 4 years, 8 million men would do
battle here
 Germany advanced 50 miles in the first
day using Blitzkrieg.
 Red Army hurting from the purge of
Officers and lacked leadership
 2 million became POWs
Civilian response
 First welcomed Nazis as liberators
 Then realized quickly life under Stalin
not so bad!
 Stalin implored people to fight for
‘Mother Russia’
Scorched earth
 As soviet forces retreated they burned
everything to the ground
 Villages, food, animals slaughtered,
wells poisoned
 Same tactic used against Napoleon
 German forces could not feed itself
Fall 1941
 Nazi forces laid seige on Leningrad,
captured Kiev and were just outside
Moscow
 Lasted 4 months longer then Hitler’s
anticipated 8 week invasion
 November it began to rain - Nazis
brought to a stand still
War in the Far East
 Hitler had hoped Japan would enter the
war against Russia
 They attack the USA instead
 On July 26, 1941 Japan made an
agreement with Vichy France to occupy
bases in French Indo-China
 USA responds with an oil embargo on
Japan
 USA also demands Japan pull out of
China
 Tojo has become Prime Minister
 He plans to launch an attack on
American, the Dutch and Britain
Pearl Harbour
 Dec 7 , 1941
 353 Japanese planes wreck havoc for 2
hours
 Destroy 350 aircraft, 5 battle ships and
kill 3,700 people
 On the same day Japan attacked the
Philippines and Hong Kong
 Japan sank British Naval ships ‘Prince of
Wales’ and ‘Repulse’ as they came to
help intervene
 Dec 8 , 1941 USA joins the fight Something the Japanese did not
anticipate
 pearl Harbour Film
 By May 1942, the Japanese had
captured Malaya, Singapore, Burma,
Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, the
Philippines, Guam and Wake Island
 Turning their attention to Australia
Things looking up for the Allies
 With the USA in the war, any war of
attrition would eventually go in favour
of the allies
 The peak of the Axis power is between
the summers of 1943 and 42, it’s all
down hill from there
Battle of the Coral Sea
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
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May 1942
Whole battle is aircraft only
A tie
Set the stage for the next major battle
Japan had also lost 2 aircraft carriers
Battle of Midway
 Turning point in the Pacific War
 June 4-7 1942, Americans counter
attack Japanese forces
 5 aircraft carriers and 5,000 soldiers
 They sink 4
 Japanese carriers, mostly because
Americans had broken the code and
knew when Japanese attacks would
happen
 In the battle of the Pacific, air power is
crucial. Japanese losses at Midway
were huge
1943 - Pacific
 General Macarthur starts ‘Island
Hopping’ in the Solomon Islands,
heading towards Japan
 Take strategic Islands from Japan
instead of every single one
 Mostly taken by air craft
North Africa
Why?
1. Suez Canal
2. Oil - in the middle east
North Africa
 In Africa, Mussolini has no success,
Britain pushed Italian troops into Libya,
Capturing 130,000 prisoners and 400
tanks
 Rommel and the German Afrika Korps
had to bail out the Italians
 North Africa Film
Tide turns in Africa
 Rommel able to push British out of
Lybia
 June 1942 German forces 70 miles from
Alexandria, Egypt
 13 Sept, 1940. Mussolini attacked Egypt.
 Britain retaliates in December
 Feb 1941, General Rommel (desert fox) becomes
commander of the German Afrika Korps
 Aug 1942, General Montgomery (Monty) in
command of the British forces in Africa
El Alamein, Egypt Oct 1942
Turning point in Africa
Located about 60 miles from Suez Canal
Winner would control the Canal and oil
Suez Canal controled by allies at the
time
 Will prove that Hitler’s elite forces can
be beaten




 Rommel’s Afrika Korps driven back by
Montgomery’s 8th army
 Allied army uses a lot of deception to
win
 Radioed wrong locations of attacks
 Built a dummy pipeline
 Made dummy tanks of plywood attached to
jeeps in the South
 In the North tanks were disguised to
look like lorries
 Axis powers laid a half million
landmines
 German forces - 80,000 soldiers and
540 tanks
 Allied forced 230,000 and 1,440 tanks
 RAF superior
 Allies had broken the code to they knew
in advance German plans
 Axis powers pushed back to Tunisia
 Nov 8, 1942, Allies landed in Morocco
and Algeria, opening up a front in the
west as well - Led by General
Eisenhower (Ike)
Operation Torch
 Eisenhower advanced from the west
 Montgomery from the east, Trapping
the Germans
 Rommel had received a "Victory or
Death" message from Adolph Hitler,
halting any withdrawal.
 Rommel able to escape with about 1000
men
 275,000 German and Italian troops
surrendered and an invasion of Italy was
made possible.
 Winston Churchill said of this victory: "This is
not the end, this is not the beginning, nor is it
even the beginning of the end, but it is,
perhaps, the end of the beginning."
 He also wrote "Before Alamein, we had no
victory and after it we had no defeats".
N. Africa Victory results




Prepared for a liberation of Italy
Reopened routes to middle east
Hitler can be defeated!
First American+European action
Turning Point - Eastern Front
 Winter 1941-42 coldest in 50 years
 Tanks and airplanes frozen - metal so
cold it cracked
 Germans only had Summer clothing
 Stalin Launched a 100 division
counterattack to save Moscow
 Hitler regroups and goes north to
Leningrad and South to Stalingrad
Battle of Stalingrad


1.
2.
3.
4.
July 17, 1942 - Feb 2 - 1943
Why Stalingrad?
It’s called Stalingrad
Huge Industrial City
Give Germany a base in USSR
Huge oil fields in the Caucasus
 German 6th Army led by General von
Paulus with 330,000 troops
 City destroyed by the end of August
 Luftwaffe dropped incendiary bombs
onto wooden houses
 But the Russians refused to surrender
 Red army pushed back to a 3-4 km
stretch along the Volga River
 Able to supply their troops by barges
 Germans never try to cross the Volga
 The Germans, however, were growing
dispirited by heavy losses, by fatigue,
and by the approach of winter
Operation Uranus
 November 1942
 Red army encircles the remaining 250,000
member 6th army
 Hitler refuses to allowed Paulus to retreat and
orders him to ‘stand and fight’
 6th army grows weaker as they start to run
out of food and are not prepared for winter
 A German division was sent eastward to rescue
the 6th army, but Paulus was not allowed to fight
Westward to meet up with them.
 Hitler told them to fight to the death
 promotes Paulus to field marshal (and reminds
Paulus that no German officer of that rank had
ever surrendered indicating Hitler expected him to
commit suicide).
 Jan 31, 1943 Paulus surrenders, defying
Hitler
 Twenty-four generals surrendered with him,
and on February 2 the last of 91,000 frozen,
starving men (all that was left of the 6th and
4th armies) turned themselves over to the
Soviets.
 they no longer respected Hitler.
 Paulus was catholic and therefore would not
commit suicide
 Soviets recovered 250,000 German corpses
around Stalingrad another 550,000 Germans
were wounded or missing.
 Of the 91,000 Germans captured half would die
in a march to Siberian prisoner camps only 56,000 made it home. The last of them returned
in 1955.
 Paulus was captured, tried and released in 1953.
He became an outspoken opponent of Hitler and
served as a witness against the Nazis during the
War crime tribunals.
 There were probably 1.1 million Red Army
soldiers that died and 40,000 civilians
Reasons the 6th Army lost
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Blitzkrieg only good for long distance
Civilians fought back
Luftwaffe outnumbered
Stalin would not allow retreat
Germans never attempted to cross the
Volga
6. Hitler did not expect a long fight
The importance of the Battle
 Hitler Lost some of his best units
 Shattered the myth of German
invincibility
 Soviet forces were now superior to
Germany
 Hitler denied Caucus Oil fields
What was the Battle of
Stalingrad like?
 Bitter fighting raged for every ruin, street,
factory, house, basement, and staircase.
Even the sewers were battle grounds
 Some of the taller buildings, saw floor-byfloor, close-quarters combat, with the
Germans on one level, Soviets on the next,
Germans on the next, etc., firing at each
other through holes in the floors.
 A lot of Snipers
 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topi
c-video/562720/18896/In-the-Battle-ofStalingrad-the-advancing-Germans-arefinally
Time line of important
victories in the East
 July 5-15, 1943 - Largest Tank Battle
ever at Kursk
 Dec 24-26 - Red army Begins offensive
in Ukraine
 Jan 6, 1944 - Red Army in Poland
 Jan 27 - Siege in Leningrad broken
 April 1944 - Offensive in Crimea
 June 9 - Red Army Moves to Finland
 June 22 - Starts massive offensive
across Eastern Front
 Aug 23 - Romania Surrenders to Allies
 Oct 20 - 1944 - Belgrade falls to Soviets
 March 1945 - Soviets take Danzig
 April 16 1945 - attacked Berlin
The Battle of the Atlantic
 Refers to Britain trying to keep shipping
lanes open
 German U-boats hunted in ‘Wolf Packs’
 1940 Italian fleet crippled
 May 1941 - Bismark sunk - last German
surface raider
 German transports to Crete lost that
same month
U-boats
 Advancements in U-boats gave
Germans the edge at sea
 Able to dive deeper
 Have a sound-absorbing rubber coating
 Have a chemical bubble making decoy
Allied advantage over U-boats
 Sonar can find them underwater really
well - forces U-boats to stay on the
surface
 Broke the Enigma code
 USA send more destroyers to Britain
The U-boat threat
 Start of 1942 only 90 U-boats with another
250 under construction
 1942 - allied ships sinking faster then they
could be built
 Able to sink 4 million tonnes of shippage
while only loosing 21 U-boats
 A U-boat was sunk in the St. Laurence
 Spotted off the coast of Vancouver Island Radar Hill
 Spring 1942 - in 20 days U-boats sank
107 Allies ships
 How to reverse this trend?
1. Radar and Long rage surveillance
planes
2. Convoys - Freighters arranged in
groups up to 50 protected by
battleships
 By July 1943, the Allies could produce
ships at a faster rate then the U-boats could
sink them.
 June - August - 79 U-boats sunk - mostly by
aircraft
 Thanks to additional warships following
America’s entry into the war.
 U-boats no longer a threat.
War in the Air
 In the Pacific bombers paved the way
for Marines in the ‘island hopping’
campaign
 American Planes kept the transport of
goods to Allied troops
 Paratroopers essential in getting behind
enemy lines
Fire Storms
 After defeat in Russia, Germany could
no longer bomb European cities.
 The allies continued to bomb cities.
 The Ruhr, Cologne, Hamberg and Berlin
What is a Firestorm?
 It is achieved by dropping incendiary bombs,
filled with highly combustible chemicals such
as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly
(napalm), in clusters over a specific target.
 After the area caught fire, the air above the
bombed area, becomes extremely hot and
rose rapidly.
 Cold air then rushed in at ground level from
the outside and people were sucked into the
fire.
Dresden
 Feb 13, 1945
 40,000 people killed in 1
nights bombing
 Had not been attacked
yet
 Has no anti-aircraft guns
 650,000 people in the
city, mostly refugees
from advancing Red
Army
 Another fire storm in Tokyo in March
1945 killed 80,000 and destroyed 1/4 of
the city
 Despite massive destruction to German
cities, Production did not falter until
October 1944.
 Krupp Munitions factories permanently
out of action
 June 1945, Japanese production
destroyed
Italian Campaign
 Allies recognize to attack the weakest first
 Invade Sicily in July, 9, 1943 successfully
 Little resistance from Italians, mostly
fronNazis
 Now can advance to the mainland
 Sept 8, Mussolini is dismissed by the
King and flees North
 Replaced by Badoglio who dissolved the
Fascist party in 2 days and declares war
on Nazi Germany
 Italy Film
 Sept 9, 1943 Allies land in Salerno and
Taranto.
 Some of the toughest fighting of the
war
 Take Rome June 4, 1944
 October 1943, Allies capture Naples and
Badoglio signed an armistice
 German troops in Italy continued to fight
 Germany sends troops into Northern Italy
 Hitler instates Mussolini as leader in the
North
 Allied victory in April 1945
 Mussolini tried to escape to Spain by
dressing in a German uniform and
traveling with the retreating German
army
 He and his mistress are captured by
Italian Communists and executed
 After being shot, kicked, and spat upon,
the bodies were hung upside down on
meat hooks from the roof of a gas
station.
 The bodies were then stoned by
civilians from below
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFSs
RTDACCo&feature=PlayList&p=4BE0F
61FE4A8E015
France
 Allies were reluctant to open up an Western
front after Dieppe
 an Allied attack on the German-occupied port
of Dieppe on the northern coast of France on
19 August 1942.
 The assault began at 5:00 AM in the morning
and by 9:00 AM the Allied commanders had
been forced to call a retreat.
 3,623 of the 6,086 men who made it ashore
were either killed, wounded, or captured.
June 6 - 1944 D-DAY
 Called D-Day, Operation Overlord,
Opening the Second Front, Normandy
Invasion/Landings, and ‘The Longest
Day.’
 the Normandy landings began along a
60 mile stretch of the Normandy coast
between Charbourg and Le Havre.
 Headed by Eisenhower
 Attack force of 3 million men
 New engineering marvels like the
‘mulberry harbor's (artificial harbours)
and PLUTO (pipeline under the ocean)
helped the men land and remain well
supplied.
 Americans to take Beaches Utah and
Omaha
 British Gold and Sword
 Canada got Juno
 Paris is Liberated Aug 25
 Brussels and Antwerp liberated in Sept
 Allies hoped to end the war by Christmas
Liberating Holland
 Operation Market Garden
 A huge allied set back
 Paratroopers landed on the wrong
bridges
 3 airbourne divisions were dropped
behind enemy lines and why were cut
to pieces by germans
Battle of the Bulge
 Allied weakspot in the Ardennes forest
 200,000 Germans against 80,000 Allies
 Hitler risks everything that Dec.
 Nazis loose 600 tanks and 100,000 soldiers
(out of 500,000)
 Hitler knows if he doesn’t win here the war is
lost
 Battle of the Bulge Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Fighting over the Ardennes
American, UK and Canadian troops involved
600,000 Allies all together
Germans had some success at beginning
But American and UK troops came stopped
them of Christmas day
 By Jan 16 Nazi army in retreat
 Last large scale attack by Hitler
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 After the Bulge, Nazis are desperate
 Release their ‘revenge weapons’
 V-1 Bombs - First Cruise missiles Unmanned flying bombs
 V-2s - Ballistic missiles that flew at
super sonic speeds targeted London
 Through Feb Allies continue to advance
 Patton leads his army to Colbenz by March
 Montgomery crosses the Rhine on March 2324 after an attack from Germany
 Germans preferred to allow Western allies to
advance rather then wait for the Soviets to
occupy them
The Eastern Front
 Has the most battles, the most losses
 After Loosing Kursk and D-day German
forces could not hold back the Red
Army
 Aug 1944, Romania changes sides and
joins the allies
 This opens up an attack route through
the south
 Oct 20, Belgrade, Serbia, Falls to Tito’s
Partisans. Tito was the leader of the
Yugoslavia resistance. He’s a commie,
becomes prime minister for 35 years
 Nov 4 Red army in Budapest, Hungary
 Finland Surrenders in Sept
 Jan 17 - USSR takes Poland
 April 25 - Berlin
encircled
 Soviet and American
troops shake hands
at Elbe River
Death of Hitler
 Hiding in his Führerbunker. (now a parking
lot)
 By Mid-April 1945, Goring and Himmler have
deserted
 Midnight April 28 Hitler married his Ling time
girlfriend Ava Braun
 April 29 Red Army 1 mile from Führerbunker.
Hitler hears about Mussolini’s fate
 Tests a cyanide capsule on his favorite
dog, Blondi.
 April 30 - noon- Red Army 1 block
away, Has his last meal
 Around 2 pm he and his wife say their
good byes and retreat to their room.
They both take cyanide pills and Hitler
shoots himself in the head
 After his death everyone in the bunker
started smoking, a practice Hitler for forbade.
 Goebbels has the bodies moved outside and
doused with gasoline and set on fire
 The bodies are burned for 3 hours and hastily
buried in a shell crater
 May 1 - Goebbels and His wife poison
their 6 young children
 They then go up to the garden and
have an SS officer shoot them in the
back of the head.
 Their bodies were only partially burned.
 May 2 - Soviets find Hitler and Ava and
his 2 dogs.
 Since the bodies were in the soviets
possession they have since been ‘lost’
and no one knows what happened to
Hitler’s body for sure
 Hitler is succeeded by Admiral Doenitz
who does not care to fight on
 Before he surrenders he’s able to save
55% of Berlin’s troops and civilians by
moving them to Western ally occupied
areas instead of towards the soviets
 Midnight May 8, 1945 the European
War ends
The Pacific Victory
 The allies has 2 choices, north through
the Aleutians or south through
Micronesia.
 First allies take the Solomon Islands
and the Bismark Archipelago
 Continue through the Philippines.
 Japanese resistance is futile as the allies
fire power is superior.
Battle of Leyte Gulf
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Oct 1944
Largest Naval battle in History
Needed to take the Philippines
Kamikaze pilots introduced
 Means ‘divine wind’
 Japanese lose 1/2 their fleet, including
4 air craft carriers
 Kamikaze attacks cause a great deal of
damage.
 Cause allied high command to worry about
the kind of resistance they would meet in a
land invasion of Japan
 Feb 1945 -The Fight for Iwo Jima
showed the Japanese fighting spirit. Of the
18,000 Japanese soldiers only 216 survive
 June 1945 - In the assault on Okinawa, 355
kamikaze raids. 5,000 Americans die
 Worlds largest Battleship the ‘Yamato’ is sent
on a suicide mission… it only had enough fuel
for a 1 way trip… it is sunk on April 7 _
Americans fighting an enemy that would rather
die then surrender
 Rangoon (Burma) is Liberated on May 1, 1945
 March 1945 - start fire bombing Tokyo
 Throughout July 1945, Japanese
mainland is heavily bombed
 67 cities fire-bombed
 Hirohito is given an ultimatum to
surrender at the Potsdam conference
but he refuses
The Manhattan Project
 1942-45 the Americans are working on
an atomic bomb with American, British,
Canadian and Danish scientists
 Fear Germany is also working on an
atomic bomb
 Employed 130,000 people and costs $2
billion
 3 bombs were made in the Project
 One was tested during the Potsdam
conference at Los Alamos, New Mexico
- it exceeded everyone's expectations
 Truman no longer had to be nice to
Stalin to gain his support in the Pacific
Bombing of Hiroshima
 August 6, 1945.
 A modern city with
concrete structures
 The bomb was called
‘little boy’
 Killed 140,000 –
80,000 of which died
immediately
 Missed it’s target of a
bridge and hit a
medical clinic
 Detonated 600 m in the air = more
damage
 Total destruction for 1.6 km square with
fires for 11 km square
 Americans had warned other civilians in
the past of bombings with leaflets, but
Hiroshima was not warned.
 FYI - Aug 8, USSR declare war on Japan
Nagasaki
 Aug 9, 1945
 Large sea-port, mostly wooden structures
 The bomb was called ‘fat man’
 Killed 80,000 – many were refugees from
Hiroshima
 Detonated 450 m in the air, heat blast of over 3,900
degrees C and winds of more than 1,000 km/hour
 15–20% died from injuries or the combined
effects of flash burns, trauma, and radiation
burns, compounded by illness, malnutrition
and radiation sickness.
 August 10 Japan surrenders.
 Sept 2 WWII officially comes to an end
Was it necessary?
 Truman says he was trying to save
allied lives by preventing a land
invasion
 Was told 1-1.5 million Americans could
die in combat in the next 12-18 months
 In July Japan as already talking peace
with Russia
 A lot of destruction with the firestorms
Why did the axis powers lose?
 Shortage of key materials
 Allies built more planes and Aircraft
carriers
 Axis powers took on too much
 There are soooooo many Russians
 Axis powers did not learn from mistakes
Effects of the war
 30 million killed - half from Russia
 21 million displaced
 No peace treaties like after WWI occupied instead
 Welfare systems set up
 Nuclear weapons
 New world powers - USA and USSR
 Cold War starts almost right away
 United Nations replaces the League.
 End :)