Transcript Aircraft Carriers

Allied Morale/Success
10. Normandy
High
WWI
[Trench
Warfare]
1. Treaty
of
VersaillesGermany
is punished
3. Hitler
crushes
Poland
2. Germany,
Japan, and Italy
start breaking the
Treaty of
Versailles- World
Wide Depression
4. Hitler
crushes
France in
less than
3 months
5. London is
bombed
6. German
General Rommel
pushes allies out
of all of North
Africa except
Egypt
9. American victories
in the Pacific, vitory
in North Africa,
Italian campaign,
7. Operation
Barbarossa
Low
1939
1940
8. Pearl Harbor
1941
1942
8. Russian Winter
1943
1944
1945
Turning Points
But First- Understanding Fronts
Eastern, Western,
Southern, Pacific
 Axis has been
winning on all of
them
 Between 1941 and
1943, most fronts
turned in the allies
favor

Eastern
Western
Southern
Eastern Front
It is true that the Nazis quickly got deep
into the Soviet Union
 They surrounded the three main Soviet
cities: Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Moscow
 However, the Soviets wouldn’t give in
 Hitler ordered sieges

Siege of Leningrad
=
St. Petersberg
 900 days
 2 slices of bread
a day
 In Jan. & Feb.
1943 200,000
people starved
 People ate
leather
briefcases and
put sawdust in
bread
Stalingrad

Soviets managed to wait for ‘General Winter’
– Sometimes history does repeat itself…



Hitler refused to back down
– Stalingrad became symbolic. Why?
For the Soviet Union, the war becomes one of
survival
– Stalin focuses on NATIONALISM, not loyalty to
COMMUNISM
In the end, the Soviets won the battle for
Stalingrad.
– They surrounded and captured an entire German army

– General Paulus story (if time)
This is THE key turning point of World War II
“On January 24, 1942, -56c degrees was measured
at our division observation post.”
Why was Stalingrad key, you ask?
Pacific Front
 Pearl
Harbor- I’ve already talked
about this as an Axis victory, but
why was it also a turning point?
 Like in WWI, U.S. was the most
powerful economy not involved
 Pearl Harbor pulled this industrial
might into the war on the Allied side
 Hitler was actually kind of pissed off
at the Japanese
Europe First!
 Difficulty
in forging an alliance
between U.S. and Britain on the one
hand and the Soviet Union on the
other
 Basic modus operandi (way of
functioning)
– Military before political
– Unconditional surrender
Doolittle Raids
 Not
on your note-taking sheet
Midway




It took the U.S. a while to rebuild their fleet
Aircraft Carriers were the key weapons in the Pacific
In the Battle of Midway, the U.S. intercepted
Japanese messages (they’d broken Japanese codes)
and set a trap
U.S. Plan
– Let Japan bomb Midway and do little to fight back (they
were hiding on aircraft carriers)
– Then, when the Japanese airplanes were returning to their
carriers the U.S. attacked, sinking four carriers

Why was this a good time to attack?
– Each side only has like 9 aircraft carriers, so sinking 4 is a
pretty big deal

A U.S. victory in the Pacific is almost guaranteed
from here on out, as U.S. production can easily
outpace Japan’s
Douglas MacArthur
 Commander
Pacific
of U.S. forces in the
Southern Front
 Germans
took over much of Northern
Africa during their early victories
under Hitler’s favorite General, Erwin
Rommel (the Desert Fox)
 Allies eventually won a major victory
at El Alamein in Egypt and forced the
Axis out of North Africa
 This gave the Allies a place from
which to launch an invasion of Italy
Western Front
Least important (before D-Day)
 Stalin begged and begs for a second front

– Why?
– Africa and Italy are too small for Stalin

The Allies stalled
– Amphibious assaults are difficult
 Remember,
Hitler couldn’t get into England either
– Also, Why stop Stalin and Hitler from wiping
each other out?

Allies did manage to win the ‘War of the
Atlantic’.
– Hitler uses U-Boats to try to ‘siege’ England
– U.S. and Britain develop the Convoy System