Transcript Important Battles: WWII

WWII: an Introduction
Nazi German Aggression
Japanese Expansion
U.S. Battles in the Pacific and Europe
WWII
 Fought in much of Europe- almost every country in Europe saw violence during WWII
 Fought throughout Southeast and East Asia as British and American forces neutralized and weakened
Japanese forces
 U.S. manufactured a little over 297,000 aircraft for WWII
 U.S. manufactured over 300 destroyers, 27 aircraft carriers, over 200 submarines for WWII
 The deaths of loved ones was staggering, leaving millions of people fatherless, childless, motherless,
etc…
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Of those who were killed in WWII, roughly 67% were civilians
Roughly 72 million deaths worldwide during WWII
Estimated number who served during WWII: 1.9 billion
German civilians killed: over 1 million
Japanese civilians killed: roughly 672,000
Russian civilians killed: over 12 million
405,000 US military deaths in WWII
11 million Soviet military deaths
5.5 German military deaths
Over 400,000 British military deaths
Over 500,000 British civilian deaths
 Statistics tell the magnitude of deaths and production during war, but the story of WWII is a human
story
Events that led to WWII
•Martin Bormann
•Inhumane, power hungry
individual
•In Hitler’s ear on a
constant basis
•Manipulative, deceiving
•Reichsminister-head of
affairs below Hitler
•Isolated from contact w/
outside world
•Reichsminister SS: Heinrich Himmler
•Believed to have as much influence as Hitler
•Former salesman- did not fight in WWI
•Joined party in 1923
•Believed Third Reich’s role was to:
•“…eliminate harmful elements to German
society…”
•Harmful elements included all ‘inferior races’
that would minimalize Germanization
SS-(SchutzStaffel) Rally in Nuremberg
•Reinhard Heydrich
•Chief of Reichs security
•SD- Sicherheitsdients
•Head of Gestapo
•Worked under Himmler/SS
Geheime Staat Polizei
State Secret Police
Secret Service
Nazi Germany Foreign Policy
Nazi Racial Policy
 Jews and Slavs inferior (Slavic population found in Eastern Europe)
 In past centuries Jews could be baptized to avoid persecution or
discrimination, but this practice changed during Nazi rule
 It should be noted that the mere fact of being baptized to avoid persecution, is of
itself, a wrong thing to encourage people to do
 February, 1933: Hitler vocalized his disdain for Slavs and discussed “living
space in the East” had to be conquered
 All Slavic people would have to be ‘Germanized’ (ruthlessly and w/out
question)
 No one was ‘Germanized’, rather people were enslaved or brutally murdered
 Mein Kampf: war with Russia was ideological war w/ Communism & race war
against Jews
 All these matters were that of the Fuhrer- Nazi gov’t became increasingly
Hitler’s gov’t
Treaties and Actions- Nazi Germany
Non-Aggression Treaty Poland: 1934
Meant to break open Germany’s isolation
Poland and France would not encircle Nazi
Reich
Berlin-Rome Axis: 1936
Italian & German fascism differed- but they
were both expansionists
Mussolini would tolerate German
“influence” (aggression) in the Alps
Reoccupation of the Rhineland: 1936
In January, 1936- 90% of inhabitants of
Saarland voted for return to German Reich
March, 1936- German troops marched into
Rhineland and took back demilitarized zone
Continual Aggression of Nazi Germany
Austrian
Anschluss, 1938
Re-occupation of
Rhineland- 1936
March into
Sudetenland, 1938
Conquer
Czechoslovakia, 1939
September, 1939: Launched
war against Poland
Battle for Britain,
August 1940massive air
bombardment
against England
Invasion of Norway &
Denmark, April1940
June, 1940:
Paris occupied
Invasion of Benelux,
May 1940
Nazi Occupied Territory
Timeline: Nazi Expansion
 1936: Nazi Germany invaded Rhineland
 1938: Sudetenland taken over by German forces
 1938: Nazi Germany annexes Austria
 1939: Nazi Germany conquered all of Czechoslovakia
 1939: Non-aggression Pact w/ Stalin
 September 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland
 April 1940: Denmark invaded & Norway invaded
 May 1940: German paratroopers dropped on Belgium,
Luxembourg & Holland
 May 1940: German troops surged into France
 July 1940: six months RAF and German Luftwaffe battled in
the air (Battle of Britain)
Japanese Expansion
 1932: Japan invades Chinese
province- Manchuria;
Shanghai follows
 1938: NE China controlled
by Japanese forces
 1940: Japanese forces
stationed in French
Indochina (modern Vietnam)
 By 1941: Indonesia,
Malaysia, Philippines &
Dutch East Indies threatened
and fell
Imperial Powers, 1939
Japanese Imperialism
War in the Pacific
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Battle of Coral Sea
 5-day battle; fought thru the air; stopped Japanese assault on Australia
Battle at Midway
 Japanese set out to capture Aleutian Islands; wanted to capture Midway Atoll for airbases & destroy U.S. aircraft
carriers
 Battle fought thru the air and focused on aircraft carriers; 322 Japanese planes destroyed and 4 Japanese aircraft
carriers destroyed
Battle at Guadalcanal
 July of ‘42: Japanese forces continued quest for Australia; Australian forces beat Japanese forces
 At the same time, U.S. forces detected Japanese airbase at Guadalcanal; 16,000 U.S. infantry given task to invade
island, capture airfield
 Battle raged for 6 months; fought on sea, air and land; Japanese surrendered island after months of attrition
Battle at Tarawa
 November ‘43: U.S. Marines suffered high casualties in assaulting island; improved Allied amphibious landings,
implemented changes in pre-invasion bombardment; increased careful planning of tides & landing craft schedules
Battle at Iwo Jima
 Japanese defended island with tunnels, hidden artillery & bunkers; some of the more fiercest fighting occurred on
this island; first U.S. attack on an Japanese home island; 20,000 of 22,000 Japanese troops killed; battle lasted 35
days; island finally taken and airfields used for bombing runs over Japan
Battle at Leyte Gulf
 October 1944: largest naval battle in history of warfare; last naval battle in current history; Kamikaze pilots were
used for the first time in this engagement;
 Victory secured the beachheads for the 6th Army’s invasion of Philippines;
Battle at Okinawa
 March-June 1945: largest amphibious invasion of WWII; Japanese lost 100,000 troops; U.S. roughly 12,000; ¼ of
civilian population killed; “Typhoon of Steel”; Okinawa would serve as springboard to invasion of mainland Japan;
Images from Okinawa
War in Europe
 Allied Invasion of Northern Africa
 Operation Torch, Nov. 1942
 Drove Germans from controlled territory in Northern Africa by 1943
 Allied Invasion of Italy
 July, 1943: Allied invaded Sicily w/ 160,000 troops; served as invasion point into
Italy; Italy surrendered to Allies; Germany moved quickly to defend Italy on its own
 Allies had to fight thru mountains to contain road leading to Rome; fierce and
defended well by Germans; U.S. finally broke thru in May, 1944
 Invasion of Nazi Occupied France
 D-Day, June of 1944
 The largest amphibious invasion in the history of war
 Goal was to drive Germans back from their defensive positions along the coast in
order to open up landing spots for US and British weapons, men, and food supplies
 Battle of the Bulge
 German counterattack in December of 1944
 U.S. forces were immobilized for over a month in freezing conditions, but finally
broke through Germany forces and crossed Rhein River by March, 1945