Transcript 02 The US in World War II

World War II
Daniel W. Blackmon
Mukden Incident
Germany Begins Open
Rearmament
• 1935 March 16 Germany repudiates
military clauses of the Versailles Treaty
Italy invades Ethiopia
• October 3, 1935
Germany Reoccupies the
Rhineland
Spanish Civil War Begins
Rome – Berlin Axis Formed
Anti-Comintern Pact
Incident at the Marco Polo Bridge
Panay Incident
Germany Annexes Austria
Munich Agreement
Germany Violates the Munich
Agreement
Pact of Steel
Nazi-Soviet Non Aggression Pact
Germany Invades Poland
USSR Invades Poland
USSR Invades Finland
Phoney War
Germany Invades Norway and
Denmark
Churchill Becomes Prime Minister
Germany Invades Belgium and
Holland
Churchill’s May 13 Speech
Blitzkrieg: The Battle of France
Dunkirk
Churchill’s June 7 Speech
Italy Invades France
Churchill’s June 18 Speech
Battle of Britain Begins
Destroyers for Bases Deal
Vichy Government Formed
Italy Invades Egypt
Operation Sealion “Postponed”
Tripartite Pact Signed
Mussolini Invades Greece
• Mussolini’s offensive is stopped by the
Greeks
• Britain will offer aid to the Greeks, and redeploy forces from North Africa to Greece
The London Blitz Begins
FDR Elected to Third Term
“The Arsenal of Democracy”
FDR: “Four Freedoms” Speech
•
•
•
•
freedom of speech,
freedom of religion,
freedom from want,
freedom from fear
Plans to Attack Pearl Harbor
• January 7
• Adm. Yamamoto begins planning for an
attack on Pearl Harbor
British Capture Tobruk
• January 22, 1941
• British counter-offensive routs the Italians
• Important coastal port of Tobruk falls
Lend-Lease Act
• March 11, 1941
FDR and Neutrality
• March 30, 1941
• US seizes all Axis shipping in US ports
• US occupies Greenland and extends antisubmarine patrols further out to sea
Hitler Briefs His Generals
• March 30, 1941
Rommel Besieges Tobruk
• March 31, 1941
• Erwin Rommel, commanding the Afrika
Korps, surprises the British with a counter
offensive
• Rommel runs the British back as fast as
the British had run the Italians
Hitler Invades Yugoslavia and
Greece
• April 6, 1941
• His purpose is to bail out Mussolini and to
secure his southern flank for the invasion
of Russia. He is extremely sensitive to
British air strikes against the Ploesti oil
fields.
Russo-Japanese Non-Aggression
Pact
• April 19, 1941
• Ignorant of Hitler's plans, Japan concludes
a nonaggression pact with Russia; Japan
wants to clear its flank before moving into
Indochina and the Dutch East Indies.
FDR and Neutrality
• June 14, 1941
• All Axis assets in the U.S. frozen
Operation Barbarossa
• June 22, 1941
• Adolf Hitler invades the Soviet Union
• The bloodiest, most savage war in human
history begins
FDR and Neutrality
• June 24, 1941
• FDR extends Lend-Lease Aid to the Soviet
Union
Gen. von Halder’s Diary
• June 29, 1941
• Colonel General Franz von Halder, Chief
of Staff of the German Army, notes in his
diary: “Reports from all fronts confirm
previous indications that the Soviets are
fighting to the last man . . . “
FDR and Neutrality
• July 8, 1941
• U.S. occupies Iceland and extends North
Atlantic patrols still further
Gen. von Halder’s Diary
• “The enemy is fighting with fanatical and
dogged determination”
• “The Russian troops, now as ever, are
fighting with savage determination and
with enormous human sacrifice.”
Smolensk Cauldron
• July 16, 1941
• 300,000 prisoners were taken. (Seaton
130)
• Surprised, outmaneuvered, suffering from
poor low level commanders, poorly
trained, the Russian soldiers resisted
fiercely if chaotically.
Hitler Briefs Top Nazis
• July 16, 1941
• ". . . we are taking all the necessary measures-shootings, deportations and so on--and so we
should. . . . The whole vast area must of course
be pacified as quickly as possible--and the best
way to do that is to shoot anyone who so much
as looks like giving trouble. . . . [Russian
guerrilla warfare] is not without its advantages as
far as we are concerned, since it gives us a
chance to wipe out anyone who gets in our way."
(Gordon 131)
Japan Invades Indochina
• July 28, 1941
• Japan invades Indochina, in part to cut
China's supply line of Lend-Lease aid
• FDR freezes Japanese assets and
embargoes oil sales to Japan; without a
compromise, a Pacific war is now
inevitable within 6 months
“wenn wir uns nicht totsiegen
wollen”
• August 3, 1941
• Total German casualties since 22 June
listed as 232,000, 150% the losses for the
same length of time as in France and
Belgium. (Ellis 54)
The Atlantic Charter
• August 14, 1941
• FDR and Churchill meet and issue the
Atlantic Charter
Kiev Cauldron
• August 17, 1941
• The Germans encircle 650,000 Soviet
troops in Kiev, the largest encirclement in
military history
• September 3, 1941
• The poison Xyklon B is tested at
Auschwitz on 600 Soviet prisoners of war.
• September 4, 1941
• Greer incident; FDR issues a "shoot-onsight" order; U.S. is now fighting an
undeclared war in the North Atlantic
• September 8, 1941
• The Siege of Leningrad begins.
• It will last 900 days; 1,000,000 civilians will
die
Operation Typhoon
• September 30, 1941
• Germans launch Operation Typhoon, a
last drive to seize Moscow
• They are hampered by the rasputitsa, the
fall rains, which turns the roads to
bottomless pits of mud
First Snowfall in Russia
• October 6, 1941
• After October 9, rain fell incessantly.
"German movement for the very first time
during the Second World War had been
brought to a standstill, and it was halted in
the second and third weeks of October by
rain and by mud. . . .
First Snowfall in Russia
• October 6, 1941
• [T]he German advance, which at first
promised to be as rapid and spectacular
as any of those of the late summer,
abruptly petered out because of the
weather and the terrain.
First Snowfall in Russia
• October 6, 1941
• In the first fortnight of the Typhoon
offensive Army Group Centre destroyed
nearly 700,000 of the Soviet defenders at
comparatively little cost to itself, and with
another three weeks' dry, mild, and clear
weather, it would inevitably have been in
Moscow." (Seaton 190)
First Snowfall in Russia
• Mid-November found the winter setting in.
"The autumn and winter of 1941 was
particularly cold. Temperatures of minus
20 and minus 25 degrees centigrade
were common in daytime and minus 30,
even minus 40, by night." (Seaton 219)
A Genocide Order
• October 10, 1941
• Field Marshall Walter von Reichenau issued
the following order to his Sixth Army:
• “There is still a lot of uncertainty regarding the
behaviour of the troops towards the bolshevist
system. . . . The main aim of the campaign
against the Jewish-bolshevist system is the
complete destruction of its forces and the
extermination of its asiatic influence in the
sphere of European culture.
A Genocide Order
• October 10, 1941
• “As a result, the troops have taken on tasks
which go beyond the conventional purely military
ones. In the eastern sphere, the soldier is not
simply a fighter according to the rules of war, but
the supporter of a ruthless racial (völkisch)
ideology and the avenger of all the bestialities
which have been inflicted on the German nation
and those ethnic groups related to it.
A Genocide Order
• October 10, 1941
• “For this reason, soldiers must show full
understanding for the necessity for the
severe but just atonement being required
of the Jewish subhumans.
A Genocide Order
• October 10, 1941
• “It also has the purpose of nipping in the
bud uprisings in the rear of the Wehrmacht
which experience shows are invariably
instigated by Jews. . . . “ (Noakes and
Pridham 1096)
Japan Decides on War with US
• October 17, 1941
• Hideki Tojo becomes Japanese premier;
Japan decides on war with the U.S. and
sets the plan for Pearl Harbor in motion
FDR and Neutrality
• October 17, 1941 USS Kearney
torpedoed
• October 20, 1941 USS Reuben James
sunk
Gen. von Halder’s Diary
• November 30, 1941
• “total losses on the Eastern Front . . .
743,112, i.e. 23.12 per cent of the average
total strength of 3.2 million. . . On the
Eastern Front the Army is short of 340,000
men, i.e. 50 per cent of the fighting
strength of the infantry. Companies have
a fighting strength of only 50-60 men”
(Ellis 65)
Operation Typhoon Halts
• December 2, 1941
• Operation Typhoon grinds to a halt. The
German spearheads are exhausted; the
men can go no further
Operation Typhoon Halts
• The Soviets had begun a massive transfer
of factories to the East in July. By
December, 1,523 enterprises and
16,000,000 citizens had been moved to
the Volga, east of the Urals, to Kazakhstan
and Siberia. (Overy 181)
Soviet Winter Counter Offiensive
• December 4, 1941
• Marshal Georgi Zhukov (who must be
regarded as the greatest commander of
World War II), in command of the defense
of Moscow, launches a winter counteroffensive, using many troops drawn from
Siberia.
Soviet Winter Counter Offiensive
• December 4, 1941
• Now assured that Japan would not attack
the USSR, Stalin agrees to largely strip
these well equipped and well trained
troops from the Far East.
Soviet Winter Counter Offiensive
• December 4, 1941
• Caught completely by surprise, the
Germans are driven backwards 150-200
miles by April in extremely bitter fighting.
Soviet Winter Counter Offiensive
• December 4, 1941
• The fighting was in weather that typically
reached -22 F (on December 10,
Guderian recorded - 63 C.),.
Soviet Winter Counter Offiensive
• December 4, 1941
• Hitler relieves many of his commanders
and takes direct, personal, strategic and
operational command of the Eastern
Front.
“A date which will live in infamy”
• December 7, 1941
• Japan attacks the U.S. at Pearl Harbor;
beginning of a Pacific onslaught
• December 8, 1941: The US declares war
on Japan
Japanese Onslaught
• December 8, 1941 Japan attacks Hong
Kong, the Philippines, and invades Malaya
• December 11, 1941 Japan attacks
Burma.
Germany and Italy Declare War on
the US
• December 11, 1941
• The German declaration of war against the
U.S. is a colossal blunder--some historians
rank it as Hitler's fatal mistake (my own
view is that Barbarossa is).
• The U.S. is now fully committed to a global
war.
Arcadia Conference
• December 22-January 3
US agrees to
a “Germany First” strategy and create a
Combined Chief of Staff to coordinate the
Anglo-American war effort
Japanese Onslaught
• December 23, 1941
Japanese seize
Wake Island
• January 11, 1942
Japan attacks the
Dutch East Indies
“The Final Solution”
• January 19, 1942
Chelmno Death
Camp begins operation
Wannsee Conference
• January 20, 1942
• The mechanics of the Final Solution are
planned.
– “Under proper guidance, in the course of the
final solution the Jews are to be allocated for
appropriate labor in the East..
Wannsee Conference
• January 20, 1942
• The mechanics of the Final Solution are
planned.
– “Able-bodied Jews, separated according to
sex, will be taken in large work columns to
these areas for work on roads, in the course
of which action doubtless a large portion will
be eliminated by natural causes.
Wannsee Conference
– “The possible final remnant will, since it will
undoubtedly consist of the most resistant
portion, have to be treated accordingly,
because it is the product of natural selection
and would, if released, act as a the seed of a
new Jewish revival
Wannsee Conference
– “In the course of the practical execution of the
final solution, Europe will be combed through
from west to east”
Japanese Onslaught
• February 15, 1942
Singapore
Japan captures
– The Dean of the Chapel at Princeton when I
was a student there was among those
captured at Singapore.
– He told us of the atrocities committed along
“the Railway of Death”
“The Final Solution”
• March 1942
into operation
Belzec Death Camp put
• April 9, 1942
the Japanese
Bataan surrenders to
– The survivors are sent onto the Bataan Death
March
• April 18, 1942
Doolittle Raid on Tokyo
– Survivors of the raid land in China
– The Japanese will kill 250,000 Chinese in
retaliation
• May
Sobibor Death Camp put into
operation
• May 6, 1942
Corregidor, our last
bastion in the Philippines, surrenders to
the Japanese
• May 6-8, 1942
Battle of the Coral Sea
– the first carrier to carrier naval battle; the two
fleets never actually saw each other.
– It is a Japanese tactical victory, but a US
strategic victory
Air Marshall Arthur “Bomber” Harris
• May 30, 1942
Cologne
1,000 Bomber Raid on
Battle of Midway Island
• June 4, 1942 Japan loses 4 carriers, the
US one.
– This is generally regarded as the turning
point of the war in the Pacific.
Operation Blue
• June 28, 1942
:The German offensive
that led to Stalingrad begins.
The Final Solution
• July
Heinrich Himmler orders the
“liquidation” of the ghettoes (Lodz,
Warsaw, Bialystok, etc.)
• July
Treblinka Death Camp put into
operation
The Battle of the Atlantic
• July 1942
Beginning of the most
desperate phase of the Battle of the
Atlantic. This will last until March 1943
Not One Step Back!
• July 28 In the face of Operation Blue,
Stalin issues Order No. 227: “Each
position, each meter of Soviet territory
must be stubbornly defended, to the last
drop of blood. We must cling to every inch
of Soviet soil and defend it to the end!”
– (Overy Russia’s War 194)
Guadalcanal
• August 7, 1942
• US Marines land at Guadalcanal in the
Solomon Islands. This begins a six month
attrition campaign of great intensity fought
on land, in the air, and on the sea.. From
this point on, the Japanese will be on the
defensive.
Guadalcanal
• August 8 / 9
• Naval Battle of Savo Island: The
Japanese Navy mauls US warships in a
night action, but failed to destroy the
transports supporting the invasion
Ilya Ehrenburg
• “Now we know. The Germans are not
human. Now the word >German= has
become the most terrible swear word. Let
us not speak. Let us not be indignant. Let
us kill. If you do not kill the German, he
will kill you. . . . If you have killed one
German, kill another. There is nothing
jollier than German corpses.”
Alexi Surkov: “I Hate”
• August 12, 1942
– My heart is as hard as stone.
– I hate them deeply.
– My house has been defiled by Prussians,
– Their drunken laughter dims my reason.
– And with these hands of mine,
– I want to strangle every one of them!
• (Overy 68)
Germans Reach Stalingrad
• August 23, 1942
• The Germans carpet bomb Stalingrad.
Germans Reach Stalingrad
• August 23, 1942
• 16th Panzer Division, approaching the city,
clashes with an anti-aircraft unit manned
by young women members of the
Komsomol, or youth group for teenagers.
• The women depress the guns and fire on
the tanks until every last one of them was
killed. 16th Panzer reaches the Volga
Guadalcanal
• August 23 / 25, 1942 Naval Battle of
the Eastern Solomons: A sprawling,
multi-day battle of large fleets, the US
Navy prevented the Japanese
reinforcmement of Guadalcanal by
transport.
Der Rattenkrieg
• September 12, 1942
• General Vasily Chuikov is summoned to
take command of the Soviet 62nd Army in
Stalingrad
Operation Uranus
• In Moscow, Stalin meets with Marshals
Zhukov and Vasilevsky. The two generals
propose a bold plan to alter the strategic
situation entirely by attacking the Germans
on both flanks and encircling them.
Operation Uranus
• Execution of the plan would require
tremendous skill and nerve, as well as
extraordinary heroism out of 62nd Army.
Stalingrad: the Rattenkrieg
• September 13, 1942 : The Germans
launch an intense assault on the city.
Chuikov makes it clear to his men that
“There is no land for us behind the Volga.”
(Beevor 135)
Stalingrad: the Rattenkrieg
• September 18-20, 1942
Fifty some
odd defenders hold off 18 German
assaults at a grain silo , before the few
survivors, out of ammunition, food, water,
and medicine, break out..
• Another center of desperate resistance
was the Univermag department store on
Red Square
Stalingrad: the Rattenkrieg
• September 27, 1942
• Another major German assault begins on
Stalingrad. Key targets were the Red
October factory and the Barrikady gun
factory.
Guadalcanal
• October 11 / 13, 1942
• Naval Battle of Cape Esperance, off
Guadalcanal: The US Navy defeats a
Japanese force, in which the US use of
radar began to shift the advantage during
night fighting from the Japanese to the US.
El Alamein
• October 23, 1942
• Battle of El Alamein begins; Rommel is
defeated and driven west; this is the
turning point of the war in North Africa
Guadalcanal
• October 26 / 27, 1942
• Naval Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands:
The Japanese Navy defeated a US force,
sinking the USS Hornet, without achieving
any decisive result.
The Battle for the Atlantic
• November1942
sinkings
High point of U-Boat