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Early Axis Gains
September 1st, 1939 – Nazi forces stormed into Poland
Hitler’s blitzkrieg (lighting war) –
German planes bombed airfield, factories, towns , and cities,
dive bombers fired on troops and civilians,
fast-moving tanks and troop transports roared into the country
While Germany attacked from the west, Stalin invaded from the east.
Within a month, Poland ceased to exist.
Hitler stopped for the winter.
Stalin pushed on into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and Finland.
During the 1st winter, the French hunkered down behind the Maginot Line (a long line of walls, forts, and armed defenses that the French built after the First World War).
Britain sent troops to wait with them.
This was the “phony war”.
April 1940, Hitler launches a blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark, then Netherlands and Belgium.
Early Axis Gains
Dunkirk
By May, German forces were pouring into France.
British troops were trapped between the Nazis and the English Channel.
The British sent all available ships (military and civilian) to pick up the troops.
They carried more than 300,000 soldiers to safety.
German forces headed south toward Paris. Italy attacked from the south.
France surrendered.
June 22, 1940 – Hitler made France sign the documents in the same railroad car in which Germany had signed the armistice.
Some French officers escaped to Britain and set up a government in exile, led by Charles de Gaulle.
Early Axis Gains
September 1940 – Italy invaded Egypt, British army fought back, Germany sent in a brilliant commander
October 1940 – Italy invades Greece, there is resistance, Germany comes in 1941
Both Greece and Yugoslavia were added to the Axis empire.
Bulgaria and Hungary joined the Axis alliance.
Early Axis Gains
Early Axis Gains
Technology:
After the fall of France, Hitler thought the British would sue for peace.
However, Winston Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister.
Hitler planned Operation Sea Lion – the invasion of Britain.
August 12, 1940 – German bombers began a daily bombardment of England’s southern coast.
For a month, the Royal Air Force battled the Luftwaffe (German air force).
Next, Germany started bombing London and other cities.
London – September 7th, 1940…they continued for 57 nights…much of the city was destroyed and more than 15,000 people were killed.
Parliament continued to meet. Citizens went about their daily lives. The king and queen joined Londoners in bomb shelters.
This continued until June 1941. British morale was not destroyed.
Hitler turned to a new target – the Soviet Union.
Battle of Britain;
Blitz
June 1941 – Operation Barbarossa – the conquest of the Soviet Union
Hitler wanted to crush communism and defeat Stalin (and take the land and resources).
Hitler unleashed a new blitzkrieg – 3 million Germans poured into the Soviet Union
Stalin was unprepared – suffering from his own purges
The Russians lost 2.5 million soldiers. As they were forced back, Russian troops destroyed factories and farm equipment and burned crops to keep them out of enemy hands.
Europe before Operation Barbarossa
The grey area is Germany, its allies, and all countries under its control.
By autumn, the Nazis were poised to take Moscow and Leningrad.
The German’s were not prepared for the winter.
Thousands of them froze to death.
September 1941 – 2.5-year siege of Leningrad started
Food was rationed to 2 pieces of bread a day.
Desperate people boiled wallpaper because its paste was said to contain potato flour.
They boiled leather briefcases and ate them – “jellied meat”.
Stalin asked for help from Britain.
early 1941 – The Lend-Lease Act (FDR passed)
Allowed him to sell or lend war materials to any country the President wanted
It would supply arms to those fighting for democracy
August 1941 – secret meeting between FDR and Chamberlain – The Atlantic Charter – set goals for the war and the post war world
American Involvement Grows
Japan Attacks
Japan kept trying to conquer China.
1940 – Japanese troops entered French Indochina and Indonesia
To stop them, the US banned the sale to Japan of war materials (iron, steel, oil).
Extreme militarist General Tojo Hideki thought the US was interfering with their plans.
December 7, 1941 – surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Japan damaged or destroyed 19 ships, smashed planes on the ground, and killed more than 2400 people.
December 8, 1941 – US declares war on Japan
December 11, 1941 – Germany and Italy declared war on the US
By the beginning of 1942, the Japanese empire stretched from Southeast Asia to the western Pacific Ocean
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Japan took on the cause of anti-imperialism.
"Asia for Asians!"
The Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere was created.
Japan wanted to help Asians escape western colonial rule.
Japan tortured and killed civilians throughout East and Southeast Asia.
People were shot for just listening to Allied radio broadcasts.
They seized crops, destroyed cities, and made locals into slaves.
In the Philippines, Indochina, and elsewhere, people waged guerrilla warfare against the Japanese.
In 1942, the Big Three (FDR, Churchill, and Stalin) agreed to end the war in Europe before turning to Asia.
None of them trusted each other.
In 1944, Britain and the US opened a 2nd front in Western Europe.
The Allies were committed to total war.
In the US and Canada, Japanese Americans and Canadians lost their jobs, property, and civil rights.
They lost their freedom and were forced into internment camps.
The British acted the same against Germans. Some 40 years later, the US and Canada apologized and paid reparations.
The Allied War Effort
Turning Points
In 1942, British General Bernard Montgomery finally stopped Germany advances in Africa during the Battle of El Alamein.
They then turned the tables on Italy, driving the Axis forces out of Libya into Tunisia.
Later in 1942, Dwight Eisenhower took command of a joint Anglo-American force in Morocco and Algeria.
He combined with British forces to trap the Germans, who surrendered in May 1943.
Turning Points
July 1943, British and American army landed in Sicily and southern Italy.
They defeated the Italians in about a month.
The Italians overthrew Il Duce.
The new Italian government signed an armistice, but fighting did not end.
Hitler sent troops to rescue Mussolini and fight against the Italians.
The fighting lasted 19 months in Italy and weakened Hitler.
Red Army Resists
The Germans were stalled outside of Moscow and Leningrad.
In 1942, Hitler launched a new offensive.
He aimed for the rich oil fields of the south, but he only made it as far as Stalingrad.
The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the costliest of the war.
The Germans surrounded the city.
The Russians encircled the Germans.
They fought street-by-street and house-by-house.
Trapped without food and ammunition, the Germans surrendered in early 1943.
Germans – 300,000 killed, wounded or captured
The Red Army then drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union. By early 1944, Soviet troops were advancing into Eastern Europe.
Invasion of France
By 1944, Eisenhower was made the supreme Allied commander.
The Allies were ready to take back France.
Allied bombers flew constant missions over Germany.
They targeted factories and destroyed aircrafts and bombed cities.
June 6, 1944 – D-Day – Allied planes dropped paratroopers behind enemy lines.
Thousands of ships ferried 176,000 Allied troops across the English Channel.
They clawed their way inland through Normandy.
They broke German defenses and advanced toward Paris. Other Allied forces sailed from Italy to southern France.
The Germans retreated.
August 25, the Allies entered Paris.
Within a month, all of France was free.
War in the Pacific
Allied troops found that war in Southeast Asia and the Pacific was very different from that in Europe.
Most battles were fought at sea, on tiny islands, or in deep jungles.
By May 1942, the Japanese had gained control of the Philippines.
In May and June 1942, US warships and airplanes severely damaged 2 Japanese fleets during the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway Island.
This stopped the Japanese advance.
The US embarked on an “island-hopping” campaign. (recapture some Japanese-held islands while bypassing others)
By 1944, the US Navy was blockading Japan, and American bombers pounded Japanese cities and industries.
Japan refused to surrender.
The Nazis Defeated
After freeing France, Allied forces battled toward Germany. The two armies met in Belgium in December 1944.
The Battle of the Bulge – last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front
Hitler’s support within Germany was declining – he had already survived one assassination attempt.
For 2 years, Allied bombers were hammering German military bases, factories, railroads, oil depots, and cities.
The Nazis Defeated
By March, the Allies had crossed the Rhine into western Germany.
Soviet troops closed in on Berlin from the east.
In late April, American and Russian soldiers were able to meet and shake hands at the Elbe River.
In Italy, guerillas captured and executed Mussolini.
(April 28, 1945)
As Soviet troops fought their way into the city, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker.
(April 30, 1945)
May 7, 1945 – Germany surrendered
May 8, 1945 – the war in Europe ended – V-E Day (Victory in Europe)
Defeat of Japan
mid-1945 – most of the Japanese navy and air force had been destroyed
the Japanese still had an army of 2 million men
Japan had showed that they would rather fight to the death than surrender.
1944 – some Japanese became kamikaze pilots who undertook suicide missions, crashing their planes into American warships
Defeat of Japan
Scientists offered another way to end the war. By splitting an atom, scientists could create an explosion far more powerful than any yet known.
Allied scientists, some of them German and Italian refugees, raced to harness the atom.
July 1945 – 1st successful test of the 1st atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico
Truman was president at this time (Roosevelt had died suddenly on April 12)
Truman and other allied leaders issued a warning to Japan to surrender or face “utter and complete destruction”. Japan ignored the warning.
Defeat of Japan
August 6, 1945 – America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima
The bomb flattened 4 square miles and killed more than 70,000 people instantly.
Many more would die from radiation poisoning.
August 8, 1945 – Soviet Union declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria
August 9, 1945 – America dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki
More than 40,000 people were killed.
August 10, 1945 – Emperor Hirohito forced the government to surrender
September 2, 1945 – formal peace treaty was signed on the American battleship Missouri
Truman was convinced that Japan would not surrender without an invasion that would result in enormous loss of life on both sides.
Aftermath
In Germany, the Allies held war crime trials in Nuremberg. 177 Germans and Austrians were tried, and 142 of them were found guilty.
Top Nazis received death sentences and most were imprisoned.
Similar trials were held in Italy and Japan.
The trials helped to discredit the Nazi, fascist, and militarist ideologies.
Allied troops occupied Germany and Japan.
They set up new governments and taught about democracy.
United
Nations
April 1945 – delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco to draft a charter for the United Nations
each member nation had one vote in the General Assembly
the Security Council had greater power (US, Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China) – the right to veto any decision
UN’s work goes far beyond peacekeeping – preventing the outbreak of disease, improving education, protecting refugees, aiding nations develop economically