Transcript Dictators Threaten World Peace

War in Europe
1938 – Germany marches into Austria
unopposed
 1938 – Germany meets with French premier
Daladier and British prime minister
Chamberlain to sign the Munich Agreement –
Germany now controls the Sudetenland
(western border region of Czechoslovakia)
 1939 – the remainder of Czechoslovakia is
invaded by Germany
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War in Europe
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August 23, 1939 – Germany and the Soviet
Union sign a nonaggression pact
Germany and the Soviet Union also sign secret
agreement to divide Poland between them
Sept. 1, 1939 – Germany invades Poland
Military strategy known as Blitzkrieg – use of
fast tanks, aircraft –take enemy by surprise
Sept. 3rd – Britain and France declare war on
Germany
War in Europe
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‘The Phony War’ –
– buildup of French and British troops along France’s
eastern border –the Maginot Line – waiting for
something to happen
1940 – Germany invades Denmark and Norway
1940 – Germany invades France from the
north and Italy invades from the south
 Germany controls Paris and creates a Nazicontrolled ‘puppet government’
 Summer of 1940 – the Battle of Britain –
Germany attempts invasion of Britain but fails
after relentless fighting
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America Moves Toward War
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Congress passes the Neutrality Act of
1939
– “cash-and-carry policy”
– Warring nations could buy U.S. arms as long
as they paid cash and transported them in
their own ships
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September 1940 – Germany, Italy, and
Japan sign a mutual defense treaty –the
Tripartite Pact – becoming known as the
Axis Powers
America Moves Toward War
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1940 – Selective Training and Service Act
– 16 million men between the ages of 21 and 35 were
registered
March 1941 – Congress passes the Lend-Lease Act
– The U.S. would lend or lease arms and other
supplies to any country whose defense was vital to
the United States
June 1941 – Hitler invades the Soviet Union and the
U.S. sends supplies to the Soviet Union
America Moves Toward War
Spring 1941 – German submarines or “wolf packs”
were attacking convoys at an alarming rate
 September 1941 – U.S. Navy begins attacking subs
and by 1943 the tide in submarine warfare begins to
change.
 1941 – Atlantic Charter
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– Joint declaration of war aims between the U.S. and Britain
– Collective security, disarmament, self-determination,
economic cooperation, and freedom of the seas.
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Dec. 7. 1941 – Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
Mobilizing for Defense
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Building U.S. Defenses:
– Congress boosted defense spending
– Selective Training and Service Act – first
peacetime military draft
– Lend-Lease Act – lending or lease of arms and
other supplies to “any country whose defense was
vital to the United States”
– Atlantic Charter – joint declaration of war aims
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December 7, 1941 – “a date that will live in
infamy”
Mobilizing for Defense
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Americans join the war effort:
– Selective Service System expanded the
draft and provided 10 million soldiers to
meet the armed forces’ needs
– Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) –
worked as nurses , ambulance drivers, radio
operators, electricians, and pilots
– By 1943 – ‘auxiliary’ status dropped and
WACs received full U.S. Army benefits
Mobilizing for Defense
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Industrial response:
– The nation’s automobile plants
were retooled to build tanks,
planes, boats, and command cars
– Factories across the nation
converted to war production
– Shipyards turned out military
vessels in record-breaking time
– By 1944 – 18 million workers
labored in war industries – more
than 6 million were women
The War for Europe and
North Africa
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War Plans:
– After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt and Churchill met
for three weeks to develop strategies
– Churchill convinced Roosevelt to strike first
against Germany, allowing for the Allies to gain an
upper hand in Europe, and eventually give more
resources to the Pacific theater
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Battle of the Atlantic:
– Early German U-boat campaigns eventually gave
way to Allied convoys and improved tracking
systems that turned the tide in the Atlantic
The War for Europe and
North Africa
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The Battle of Stalingrad:
– Germans had been fighting on Soviet Union soil
since June 1941 – Operation Barbarossa
– July of 1942 – Germany attempts to take
Stalingrad
– Stalingrad was on the verge of collapse until
winter set in, turning the tide for the Soviets
– German commanders surrendered in January
of 1943
– Soviets lost over 1,000,000 soldiers defending
Stalingrad – Germany lost more than 230,000
– After the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet
Union began moving westward toward Germany
Key American Commanders
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Dwight D. Eisenhower –
– Supreme Commander of Allied forces in
Europe
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General Douglas MacArthur –
– commander of Allied forces in the Pacific
General George S. Patton
 Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
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The War for Europe and
North Africa
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The North African Front:
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The Italian Campaign:
– 1942 - Operation Torch – invasion of Axiscontrolled North Africa
– Allied commander – Dwight D. Eisenhower
– May 1943 – enemy resistance ceases
– Summer of 1943 – Mussolini stripped of power and
arrested
– 1944 – Battle of Anzio – 25,000 Allied and 30,000
Axis casualties
– German resistance continued in Italy until the
war’s close in 1945
The War for Europe and
North Africa
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D-Day:
– Code-named Operation Overlord
– June 6, 1944
– Attack took place at Normandy in northern France
– Landing points – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and
Sword beachheads
– Within 1 month – 1 million troops landed, 567,000
tons of supplies, and 170,000 vehicles
The War for Europe and
North Africa
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Battle of the Bulge:
– October 1944 – Germans went on offensive sending
eight German tank divisions 60 miles in allied
territory
– Germans were eventually pushed back – losing
120,000 troops, 600 tanks and assault guns, and
1,600 planes – which could not be replaced
– Malmedy – massacre of 120 American GIs by the
German SS
As the Allies pushed eastward and the Soviets
westward, the horror of concentration camps were
discovered and finally liberated
Operation MarketGarden
September 17, 1944
Battle of the
Bulge
16 December 1944
6,1944 1945
- June
25 January
--------------Normandy (D-Day)
Monte Cassino
Spring of 1944
Anzio (Operation
Shingle)
January 1944
Invasion of Sicily
July 10, 1943
The War for Europe and North
Africa
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April 12, 1945 – President Roosevelt died of a
stroke and Harry S. Truman became the
nation’s 33rd president
April 25, 1945 – Soviet Union storms Berlin
April 30, 1945 – Hitler commits suicide
May 8, 1945 – Eisenhower accepts the
unconditional surrender of the Third Reich
V-E Day – Victory in Europe Day is celebrated
The War in the Pacific
Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor had
fortunately missed the Pacific Fleet’s
submarines and aircraft carriers
 Six months following Pearl Harbor, the
Japanese expanded their territory to include
Hong Kong, French Indochina, Malaya, Burma,
Thailand, and much of China
 Many islands across the Pacific were also
captured – Dutch East Indies, Guam, Wake
Island, and Solomon Islands
 Philippines – Douglas MacArthur forced to
retreat and leave Bataan
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The War in the Pacific
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Doolittle’s Raid:
– April 1942 – James Doolittle leads 16 bombers in an attack
on Tokyo
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Battle of the Coral Sea:
– Five-day battle in May of 1942 that stopped the Japanese
drive toward Australia
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Battle of Midway:
– Japanese fleet attacked before they could take Midway
Island – losing four aircraft carriers, a cruiser, and 250
planes
– Midway marked a turning point in the Pacific – the Allies
started to reclaim many islands back from the Japanese and
get closer to mainland Japan
The War in the Pacific
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The Allies go on the offensive:
– August 1942 – battle for Guadalcanal in the
Solomon Islands
– October 1944 – Battle of Leyte Gulf - 178,000
Allied troops and 738 ships converge on Leyte
Island in the Philippines – return of MacArthur
– Battle of Leyte Gulf saw the Japanese use
‘kamikaze’ tactics – yet in three days of battle still
suffered the loss of 3 battleships, 4 aircraft
carriers, 13 cruisers, and almost 500 planes
The War in the Pacific
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Iwo Jima:
– Strategic island that could be used for bombers to reach
Japan
– Defended by 20,700 Japanese
– 6,000 marines died taking the island – only 200 Japanese
survived
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Battle for Okinawa:
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April-June 1945
Over 12,000 Americans killed
An estimated 110,000 Japanese killed
1,900 Kamikaze attacks – sinking 30 ships, and damaging
more than 300, almost 5,000 seamen killed
The War in the Pacific
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The Atomic Bomb Ends the War:
– Manhattan Project – research directed by
J. Robert Oppenheimer
– More than 600,000 Americans involved in
the project
– First test took place in New Mexico on July
16, 1945
– Truman makes the decision to use the
atomic bomb
The War in the Pacific
August 6, 1945 – the Enola Gay drops an
atomic bomb code-named Little Boy over
Hiroshima
 August 9, 1945 - second atomic bomb codenamed Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki
 September 2, 1945 – Japan formally
surrenders aboard the U.S. battleship
Missouri
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Limit of
Japanese
Advance
to March 1945
February 1944February
June 1944
------------------------------------------July to August Enewetak
1944
Iwo Jima
Saipan
January 1944
--------------Guam--------------October 1944 Kwajalein
April to 1943
June 1945
--------------- November
September
1944
March
1944
--------------Gulf
of Leyte --------------------------------------------Tarawa
Okinawa
February 1943
Peleliu
Bougainville Island
----------------June 1942
Guadalcanal
January 1942
---------MayBattle
1942 of Midway
---------February 1942
---------Bataan Peninsula
---------Coral
Sea
Casualty:
Java Sea
1 carrier sunk,
approximately
USA – over12,000
approximately
killed
6,000
or wounded
killed
300 killed
JPN – 66,000
more than
killed,
20,000
7,000killed
captured
JPN – 4 carriers sunk, 3057 killed
The War in the Pacific
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Rebuilding Begins:
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Nuremberg War Trials:
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The Occupation of Japan:
– The Yalta Conference – Feb. 1945 - Roosevelt Churchill and Stalin
(the Big Three) meet to decide fate of Germany and the postwar
world
– Germany dived into four zones – American, British, Soviet, and
French
– Nazi leaders put on trial for war crimes
– 12 of 24 defendants sentenced to death
– Nearly 200 more Nazis found guilty of war crimes
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–
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MacArthur commands the occupation
More than 1,100 Japanese arrested and put on trial
Japan’s economy introduced to free-market practices
New constitution created allowing for women’s suffrage and basic
freedoms