Transcript File - Ms. halty`s class

World War II
1939 - 1945
War in Europe Begins
August, 1939: Nazi-Soviet NonAggression Pact, two nations agree to
split Poland
 Sept. 1, 1939: Hitler invades Poland,
starting WWII.
 Sept, 3, 1939: Britain and France
declare war on Germany and Germany
and Italy declare war on them.

The Japanese Empire
Japan wanted to expand to meet the
land needs of a growing population and
to obtain more raw materials and
markets for its industries.
 1931: Japan seized Manchuria
 1937-40: Japan seized most of E.
China
 Sept. 1940: Japan joins the tripartite
pact, becoming an ally of Italy and
Germany.

America and WWII
America initially stayed out of the war,
but began a naval build up in the Pacific
to counter the expansion of Japan.
 Disillusionment from WWI and the Great
Depression contributed to the popularity
of isolationism in America.

American Involvement Grows
Neutrality Acts
 Lend-Lease Act

- Americans “lend”
supplies to Allies
America gets closer to war
Mid 1941: Japanese forces seized
French territories in Indochina.
 US cuts off all trade with Japan.
 Americans began to crack the Japanese
secret code and intercepted messages
saying that Japan was planning to seize
more islands in the Pacific.

Pearl Harbor

Dec. 7, 1941: Japanese forces
attacked Pearl Harbor killing 2,400,
wounding 1,200, and destroying 300
Am. Planes, 18 warships, and 8 of the 9
US battleships.
WAR

Dec. 8, 1941: FDR delivered a war
message to Congress. Within 3 days, the
US was at war with Japan, Germany, and
Italy.
The Battle of Stalingrad
Sept.- Nov. 1942: the Germans attack
Stalingrad, a major oil and railroad
center.
 Soviets hold off Germans
 Turning point in Eastern Europe

The North African Campaign

Nov. 1942: Br. General Montgomery wins the
Battle of El Alamein in Egypt. This starts the
retreat of Germans in North Africa
The Invasion of Italy
July, 1943: Am. Troops commanded by
General George Patton attacked Sicily.
 38 days later, Sicily fell and Mussolini
was overthrown by a disillusioned Italian
population.
 Italian people begin to fight Hitler’s
forces with the Allies

War in W. Europe
The US began to bomb Germany in
1942 using carpet bombing tactics.
 The bombing of Dresden was one of the
most famous campaigns of the air war.

Dresden Before & After
D-Day

June 6, 1944: Allied
troops commanded
by Eisenhower
landed on the
beaches of Normandy
and began the
invasion of W. Europe
and the liberation of
France.
The US Frees W. Europe

American forces
continued to defeat
the Germans and
freed Paris by
August, 1944. In
Sept., Belgium and
Holland were freed
from Nazi control.
The Battle of the Bulge
Dec. 1944: Germany launched its last
offensive in the war attacking
Americans in Belgium and Luxembourg.
 This was the largest battle ever fought
by the US army and the largest battle of
WWII.
 Germans lose and signals the beginning
of the end for a Germany

May
8,
1945:
V-E
Day
The Yalta Conference

Feb. 1945: The “Big Three” met at
Yalta in the USSR to plan the post-war
world.
Yalta Conference
All agreed to split Germany into 4 zones
of occupation and to also split the
capital city, Berlin.
 Stalin promised to allow free elections in
the nations his army liberated from
Germany.
 Stalin agreed to enter the war against
Japan soon after the German surrender.

Japanese Expansion
Japanese forces continued to expand
and were not stopped by allied forces
until the Battle of the Coral Sea in May,
1942.
 This battle fought entirely with planes
from aircraft carriers. Enemy ships
never came within sight of one another.

Battle of the Coral Sea

Although both the US and
the Japanese navy lost
about 1/2 of their forces,
this battle stopped the
Japanese from
establishing the bases
they needed to invade
Australia.
The Battle of Midway
June 4, 1942: This battle was also
fought entirely from the air.
 Decisive battle for the Allies
 Turning point for Allies in the Pacific

Battle of Guadalcanal
1st US offensive of the Pacific war.
 August 1942: 11,000 US Marines
landed at Guadalcanal in the Solomon
Islands and about 2,200 Japanese fled
into the jungle. They fought there for 3
months.
 Feb. 1943: Japan abandoned
Guadalcanal.

Island-Hopping
From February 1943 on, the US forces
began to selectively attack enemy-held
islands in the Pacific.
 The Japanese fiercely defended their
positions and both sides suffered heavy
casualties.

More US Offensives
By Feb. 1944, the US had crippled
Japanese air power and seized the
Marshall islands.
 By June, 1944, the US captured parts of
the Mariana Islands.
 The Mariana Islands were important
because they enabled US planes to
bomb Japanese cities.

Japanese Kamikazes
Japanese kamikazes were suicide pilots
who crashed their planes which were
heavily loaded with bombs into allied
ships.
 During the war, the US experienced
about 4,900 kamikaze attacks which
destroyed 57 American ships and
damaged about 650 others.

A
Kamikaze
Pilot
The Battle of Iwo Jima
The battle for this 14 square mile island
was one of the bloodiest battles of the
war.
 25,000 Japanese protected the small
rocky island and it took over 110,000
Americans to defeat them. Only 216
Japanese surrendered--the rest died.
 More US medals of honor were given
for this battle than any other single
battle of the war.

Marines Raising the US Flag
at Iwo Jima
American Offensives
Iwo Jima was located about 700 miles
from Japan. Its capture was another
step toward an eventual invasion of the
Japanese home islands.
 The next island to fall to the Americans
was Okinawa, which was located about
350 miles from Japan.

The Bombing of Hiroshima


August 6, 1945: On
President Truman’s
orders, the Enola
Gay dropped an
atomic bomb on the
city of Hiroshima.
It destroyed about
90% of the city and
killed about 140,000
people.
Nagasaki
When the bombing of Hiroshima did not
elicit a surrender from the Japanese
government, a 2nd atomic bomb was
dropped on Nagasaki on August 9,
1945.
 The bomb on Nagasaki was equally
destructive and led to a Japanese
surrender.

V-J Day
August 14, 1945: Japan agreed to an
unconditional surrender.
 The formal surrender was signed on
September 2, 1945 on the USS
Missouri in Tokyo Bay, officially ending
WWII.

The Results of the War
After the defeat of the Axis powers, all
territories that had been taken over by
Japan were returned to their pre-war
status.
 All of the German-occupied territories
were supposed to be given free
elections, but only the W. European
nations became democratic. Stalin
refused to honor the Yalta agreements
and made E. Europe into a series of
Communist dictatorships.

World War II Allied Deaths
Nation
Military
Civilian
Total
France
122,000
470,000
592,000
Britain
305,800
60,600
366,400
US
405,400
0
405,400
USSR
11,000,000 6,700,000
17,700,000
World War II Axis Deaths
Nation
Military
Civilian
Total
2,350,000
5,600,000
226,900
60,000
286,900
1,740,000
393,400
2,133,400
Germany 3,250,000
Italy
Japan