World War II

Test Your Knowledge!

• When was Word War II?

• What countries were on the two sides?

• What caused war to break out?

• Where was the fighting?

• Why did the Allies win?

A Truly World War

Casualty List

The World Before The War

• Dictators take control– Italy: Benito Mussolini (fascist)– Soviet Union: Joseph Stalin (communist)– Germany: Adolf Hitler (fascist)

• Factors that led to Hitler’s rise– Economic turmoil– Nationalism and the shame of WWI

defeat• Need of scapegoat• Desire to restore national pride

– Fear of communism

Acts of Aggression

• 1935: Italy invades Ethiopia

• 1937: Japan invades China

– The Rape of Nanking

• 1938: Germany takes over Austria

– Hitler demands unification of all German-speaking people

Response to Italian Aggression

• League of Nations imposes economic sanctions on Italy

– Mussolini: "I warn you, I am ready to go to war in Europe. The Italian people have created an empire with their blood, and they will defend it with their blood."

Response to Japanese Aggression

• League of Nations, U.S. pass resolutions condemning Japanese aggression in China

– Yosuke Matsuoka: “And what country in its expansion has ever failed to be trying to its neighbors? Ask the American Indian or the Mexican how excruciatingly trying the young United States used to be once upon a time.”

Response to German Aggression

• Munich Conference (1938)

– Germany wants Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia

– France and Britain adopt policy of appeasement: they agreed to Hitler’s demands in exchange for peace

War Breaks Out

• Germany invades Poland

• France falls

• The miracle at Dunkirk

– Trapped Allied forces in Belgium rescued by civilians and evacuated to England

The Battle of Britain

• Germany attacks British shipping, air force

• Interactive

The U.S. Aids Britain

• Graphic from p. 705

Germany Invades the Soviet Union (1941)

• Breaks non-aggression pact

• 3 million German troops make quick progress

• Unprepared for harsh winters

• Siege of Leningrad (winter 1941-1944) kills 1 million civilians

• Battle of Stalingrad (1942) kills 1 million Soviet troops– Germany loses

America Embargoes Japan• Roosevelt worried about Japan attacking

British colonies in Asia• U.S. stops selling airplane fuel and scrap

iron to Japan• Japan joins Italy and Germany to become

member of the Axis• U.S. sends military aid to China to tie up

Japanese forces there• Japan sends military to Indochina, posing

threat to British• U.S. reduces oil sales to Japan, builds up

forces in Philippines• Japan plans to attack British and Dutch

colonies in Asia to obtain needed resources

Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941

• Japan strikes U.S.

• Damages:– 8 battleships, 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 6

other ships

– 188 planes

• Deaths– 2,403

• U.S. votes to declare war on December 8– 470 to 1

• Germany and Italy declare war on U.S. on December 11

The Fall of the Philippines• Japan invades Philippines hours after

bombing Pearl Harbor• Troops led by General Douglas

MacArthur hold out on Bataan Peninsula

• FDR orders MacArthur to evacuate to Australia

• American surrender • 78,000 troops forced to march 65

miles to Japanese prison camp– Bataan Death March– 10,000 die

The Doolittle Raid

• FDR sends attack on Tokyo to boost American morale

• Famous pilot Jimmy Doolittle leads the raid

• Little military significance, but large morale significance

The Battle of Midway

• Small island in Pacific, home to U.S. military base

• Japan planned to attack and conquer• Japan also hoped to lure U.S. into naval

battle• Japan had advantage in number of ships

and aircraft carriers• Americans cracked secret Japanese code;

were ready for Japanese attack and then launched counter attack on Japanese ships

• Great victory for Allies– Japan loses 4 aircraft carriers, 3,057 men– U.S. loses 1 aircraft carrier, 362 men

The Battle of Midway

• Small island in Pacific, home to U.S. military base

• Japan planned to attack and conquer• Japan also hoped to lure U.S. into naval

battle• Japan had advantage in number of ships

and aircraft carriers• Americans cracked secret Japanese code;

were ready for Japanese attack and then launched counter attack on Japanese ships

• Great victory for Allies– Japan loses 4 aircraft carriers, 3,057 men– U.S. loses 1 aircraft carrier, 362 men

Guadalcanal

• An important Japanese base from which they could invade Guam, Australia, etc.

• Marines dropped off in August 1942

• Fierce, close-quarters jungle combat for 6 months

• Japanese leave February 1943

• Establishes U.S. base from which they could “island hop” towards Japan

The Home Front: Racial Tension

• “Great Migration” resumes as new factory jobs become available in the North

• African Americans hope for “Double V”– Victory over Axis powers abroad and

segregation at home

• Racial riots erupt in Detroit, Los Angeles, other cities

• Japanese Internment: sent to live in prison camps– Nearly every one who had at least one

Japanese grandparent

– 112,000 people

The Battle for the Atlantic

• German submarines sink hundreds of American cargo ships in the Atlantic

• U.S. response turns the tide

– Oil pipeline from Texas to Pennsylvania

– Convoy system escorts cargo ships

– New technology increases U.S. success in attacking submarines

• Radar, sonar, depth charges

The Battle for North Africa

• November 1942: Americans invade Morocco and Algeria (French colonies under German control)

• U.S. defeated at the Battle of KasserinePass– Germany’s Afrika Korps led by “Desert

Fox” Erwin Rommel– 7,000 casualities

• British and American forces combine to turn the tide

• On May 13, 1943, 250,000 German soldiers surrender in North Africa

Attacking Axis-Controlled Europe

• Allied troops invade and conquer Sicily, mainland Italy in summer and fall 1943

• Germans fight and successfully stall Allied advance in Northern Italy until the end of the war

• In January 1943, FDR and Winston Churchill decide to amp up bombing of Germany– Dropped 53,000 tons of explosives every

month until the end of the war– Attacked industry, infrastructure,

transportation, and civilian populations

B17 “Flying Fortress”

D-Day: June 6, 1944

• Allied forces invade France from England

• Led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Breaking out of Normandy

• Fighting the Germans hedgerow to hedgerow

• Finally break out July 25, 1944

• Allies now make their way through France and into Germany

Raymond De Jonge

German 88

• Strafing

The Battle of the Bulge (December 1944)

• Germany’s last desperate offensive

• An attempt to cut off Allied supply routes at Antwerp, Belgium

Jay Laarman

The Holocaust

• 6 million Jewish people killed

• Gypsies, disabled people, homosexuals, and Slavic people also persecuted and murdered

Holocaust: Underlying Causes

• Nationalism

• Need for a scapegoat after humiliation of WWI

• Economics cause people to rally around Hitler

• Nazis convince German people to accept their message– Germans a master race

– Jews, blacks, Gypsies, disabled inferior and corrupting

Convincing the German People

• Historical myth: Germans descendants of an elite class of medieval knights– Method: planting fake artifacts and

staging “archeological” discoveries– Truth: Medieval Germanic tribes were

barbarians

• Scientific myth: other groups inferior– Method: “Medical” studies of cranium

size– Truth: Jews were disproportionately

successful in law, medicine, business, and entertainment

Brainwashing the German People

• Information flow: government controls what is read, listened to

– Censorship

– Education

– Propaganda

Holocaust: A Slow Progression

• Boycotted Jewish businesses

• Laws to strip Jewish people of their rights– Removed citizenship

– Banned marriage with non-Jewish Germans

– Lost voting rights

– Could not work in government, journalism, law, medicine, acting, or run a business

Holocaust Progression cont.

• Deportation• Kristallnacht: Nov. 9 and 10, 1938

– Widespread violence against Jews

• Jewish people confined to ghettos– Tiny food rations

• Concentration Camps– People forced to work until died of

exhaustion or malnutrition

• Extermination Camps– Mass murder

The Battle of Leyte Gulf(Oct. 1944)

• Largest Naval battle in history

• Kamikazes make their first appearance

• Vid

Iwo Jima-Importance

• Small island halfway between Marianas and Japan mainland

• Fighter planes from Iwo Jima could intercept B-29 bombers heading towards Japan

• Radar station at Iwo Jima could give mainland advanced warning of B-29 approach

Iwo Jima-Buildup

• 72 straight days of bombing

• 11.4 million tons of bombs dropped

• 70 mile-long Fleet of 880 ships carrying 110,000 men (70,000 assault troops)

• 22,000 Japanese troops built miles of underground tunnels

• Japanese knew they would not survive; goal was for each to kill 10 Americans before he died

Iwo Jima-Battle

• American invaders easy targets for well-protected Japanese defenders

• Americans use flamethrowers and hand grenades to clear bunkers

• Conquer Mount Suribachi after three days

• Fighting lasts over a month• 6,891 Americans killed, 18,070

wounded• 212 Japanese taken prisoner (out of

22,000)

Fire Bombing Japan

• B-29’s wipe out large portions of major Japanese cities

• Used napalm: jellied gasoline

Firebombing Tokyo: March 9, 1945

334 B-29’s

8, 519 bombs weighing 500 pounds each

496,000 6.2 pound M69 cylinders

100,000 civilianskilled

Five Things You Need to Know

To understand the atomic bombing of Japan

1. American Racism

2. The Japanese Mentality

• Death before dishonor

• Death preferable to falling into the hands of American devils

3. FDR’s Fateful Phrase

• “Unconditional Surrender”

FDR’s Fateful Phrase

• Was it this phrase that led the Japanese to want to fight to finish?

• Would Japan have accepted a conditional surrender?

• What conditions would they have wanted?

4. Japan was already beaten (and they knew it)

Japan was already beaten (and they knew it)

5. The Soviet Union’s RoleTimeline

• February 1945: Yalta Conference – FDR concedes primary Soviet control of

Poland, Stalin agrees to declare war on Japan

• July 16, 1945 U.S. successfully tests first nuclear bomb

• July 17, 1945: Potsdam Conference– U.S. no longer sees the need for Soviets to

enter the War– Growing tension between Truman and Stalin

• August 6, 1945: Hiroshima bombed—still no surrender

• August 8: Soviet Union declares war on Japan, invades Manchuria

• August 9: Nagasaki bombed• August 15: Japan surrenders

Why did the U.S. drop the bomb?

• “The main purpose of this project is to subdue the Russians.”

• General Leslie Groves

• “Neither the President nor I were anxious to have (the Russians) enter the war after we had learned of the successful (atomic) test…(I am) hoping for time, believing that after (the) atomic bomb Japan will surrender and Russia will not get in so much on the kill.”

• Secretary of State James F. Byrnes

Was it Necessary?

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.”

– Admiral William Leahy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Was it Necessary?

• “It (is) almost a certainty that the Japanese would have capitulated upon the entry of Russia into the war.”

-1946 U.S. War Department report

• “Atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”

-General Hap Arnold

Was it Necessary?

• “Even without the atomic bomb and the Russian entry into the war, Japan would have surrendered in two weeks.”

• “The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war.”

– General Curtis LeMay

Was it Necessary?

“I don’t think we need to do it at this time. It is not necessary.”

– Admiral Ernest King, commander in chief of the U.S. Navy

Was it Necessary?

“The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

– Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific fleet

Was it Necessary?

“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment…It was a mistake ever to drop it.”

-Admiral Bull Halsey