World War II

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World War II
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The Invasion of Poland

• 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)

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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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Germanys Next Moves

• 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

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US responded by Destroyers for Bases Deal

• 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

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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

• 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

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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

• 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 fire-bombing raids on
  German cities

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Lend-Lease Act

• March 1941
• US declared that it would lend or lease (since it
  couldnt 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

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Hemispheric Defense Zone

• 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

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The Atlantic Charter

• 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

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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 Germanys
  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

• 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)

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The Wannsee Conference

• 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 and deth
  camps

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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
  Nazis considered undesirable Gypsies, Poles,
  Russians, uncooperative Catholic priests,
  homosexuals, the mentally ill, the physically
  or mentally handicapped

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Japan Takes Advantage

• 1940 - 41 As war raged in Europe, Japan occupied
  French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and
  positioned itself to threaten British colonies
  and the US-controlled Philippines

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US Embargo of Japan

• In response, US cut off Japans 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

• 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

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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

• 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

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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

• May 4 8, 1942
• US Navy had broken Japanese codes and learned of
  Japans 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

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Battle of Midway-turning point in war in pacific!

• 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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