Transcript World War II - ajvagliokhs

World War II
The Invasion of Poland
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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
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Germany’s Next Moves
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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
Destroyers for Bases Deal
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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
British-controlled
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
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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
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Winston Churchill
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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
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“The Blitz”
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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 firebombing raids on German
cities
Lend-Lease Act
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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!
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Battle of Stalingrad
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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
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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
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
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Japan Takes Advantage
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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
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Pearl Harbor
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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
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Japan Keeps Rolling
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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”
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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
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Battle of Coral Sea
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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
Battle of Midway
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
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