World War II
1939 - 1945
The Rise of Fascism
● Fascism is a nationalistic political
philosophy which is anti-democratic,
anti- communist, and anti-liberal. It puts the importance of the nation above the rights of the individual.
● The word Fascism comes from a Latin word meaning “ bundle of sticks.”
These Fasces were used in ancient
Rome to beat Senators who did not vote
the way the emperor wanted.
Fascism
● Fascist dictators
began to take over in parts of Europe in the 1920’s and 1930’s due to bad economic
conditions created
by WWI and the
Great Depression.
Italy
● Benito Mussolini became the Prime
Minister of Italy in 1922. He used this position to outlaw all non-fascist
political parties and soon became and
dictator.
Germany
● Adolph Hitler became the Chancellor of
Germany in January, 1933. Through a
variety of manipulative actions, Hitler soon
dismantled the German government and
became a dictator.
Europe Moves Toward War
● 1936: German troops moved into the
Rhineland. This was
prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles.
● 1936: Hitler and
Mussolini signed an
alliance, creating the
Axis.
The Spanish Civil War
● 1936-39: Spanish Civil War: Fascist
forces aided by Italy and Germany take
over Spain. (WWII dress rehearsal).
More Steps Toward War
● March 1938: Germany annexed Austria.
● Sept. 1938: Munich conference: Hitler forced the British and French to give
him the Sudetenland in return for a promise not to invade the rest of
Czechoslovakia.
● March, 1939: Hitler took over
Czechoslovakia.
War in Europe Begins
● March 31, 1939: Britain and France agreed to protect Poland in case of a German invasion.
● August, 1939: Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
● Sept. 1, 1939: Hitler invaded Poland, starting WWII.
● Sept, 3, 1939: Britain and France
declared war on Germany and Germany
and Italy declared 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.
● 1939: FDR moved the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.
● Disillusionment from WWI and the Great
Depression contributed to the popularity
of isolationism in America.
American Involvement Grows
● Neutrality Acts of the mid to late 1930’s made it impossible for the US to give
loans to nations at war or to allow any combatant to buy on credit.
● FDR had to find other ways to help out the British and the French in their fight against Fascism.
● March 1941: Lend-lease began.
The Atlantic Charter
● August 1941: FDR and Winston
Churchill met secretly on a ship off the coast of Newfoundland to agree on war goals, since both foresaw US joining the Allies, soon.
● They agreed to ensure national
sovereignty for all nations and drew up
the outline for the United Nations. This
was the Atlantic Charter.
America gets closer to war
● Mid 1941: Japanese forces seized French territories in Indochina.
● In response, the US froze Japanese assets in the US and cut 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.
Problems in the Pacific
● October 1941: General Tojo became
Prime Minister of Japan and wanted war with the US.
● Nov. 1941: The US intercepted
messages showing that a Japanese force was moving towards SE Asia to take more land.
● FDR demanded that it be recalled and
that Japan withdraw from conquered
territories.
Pearl Harbor
● Japanese negotiators agreed to meet with US diplomats.
● While they met, the Japanese decided to sent a fleet to Pearl Harbor to destroy the US Pacific fleet.
● 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.
A Grim Future for the Allies
● In Jan. 1942, the Axis powers had a big advantage in Europe. By then, Britain was almost defeated, the Axis
controlled almost all of continental Europe, and German troops had captured most of North Africa.
● German subs were trying to keep food
and supplies from reaching Britain.
The Battle of the Atlantic
● American and
British ships fought to maintain control of the Atlantic and protect Britain from defeat.
● Allied ships used
Sonar to locate and attack German
subs.
Capture of U-Boat 505
● Although the subs did a lot of
damage, the
invention of sonar helped to defeat the German
wolfpacks.
The North African Campaign
● Nov. 1942: Br. General Montgomery wins the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt.
This starts the retreat of German General Rommel.
● Nov. 1942: Am. and Br. troops
commanded by Dwight Eisenhower landed in Morocco.
● Eventually the two allied armies met,
forcing a German surrender in Africa.
Casablanca Conference
● January 1943: FDR and Churchill met in Casablanca, Morocco.
● They agreed to win the war in Europe before concentrating on the Pacific.
● They agreed to demand only an
unconditional surrender from all of the
Axis powers.
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.
● Hitler captured Mussolini and set up a
fascist state in N. Italy, and Italian and
German troops continued to fight the
Allies in Italy.
War in Italy
● Sept. 1943: Italy surrendered to the
allies, and many Italians began to fight against Mussolini and Hitler.
● Sept. 1943 - Jan. 1944: US forces are stalled by Hitler’s troops .
● Finally in January, the US landed forces
behind the German lines at Anzio, just
South of Rome.
The Battle of Anzio
● This battle took 4 months and 72,000 German deaths to win.
● Soon after the battle, Rome fell to the Allies.
● N. Italy finally surrendered to the Allies
in April, 1945, after 190,000 Americans
and 483,000 Germans died there.
War in the Soviet Union
● June, 1941: Germany attacked the Soviet Union with 3.6 million German soldiers.
● The USSR asked the US for lend-lease help, but FDR refused, afraid to be
caught helping a communist nation.
● Eventually, the USSR repelled the
German attack, but this was only a
temporary victory.
The Battle of Stalingrad
● 1942: Germany again attacked the USSR, this time concentrating its attacks in the Southern part of the country.
● Sept. 1942: the Germans attacked
Stalingrad, a major oil and railroad
center.
Map of the 1942
German Invasion of
the USSR
The Battle of Stalingrad
● From September to November, 1942, the Germans shelled and attacked the city of Stalingrad.
● The USSR refused to surrender the city and house - to - house fighting saved the city from defeat.
● By late November, the USSR launched
a counteroffensive and began to win the
battle.
A Turning Point
● Jan. 31, 1943: 90,000 surviving
German soldiers surrendered to the Soviet army in Stalingrad.
● This was the turning point of the war in
the east: after this the USSR never lost
another battle, and the Germans did not
launch any more offensives in the east.
War in W. Europe
● The US began to bomb Germany in 1942 using carpet bombing tactics.
● In 1943, the amount of bombs dropped in Germany doubled.
● By 1944, the US was bombing Germany 24 hours a day.
● The bombing of Dresden was one of the
most famous campaigns of the air war.
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.
● Despite brutal German resistance, 2
million allied soldiers occupied France
by July.
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.
● Patton arrived a few days later with 250,000 men.
● This was the largest battle ever fought
by the US army and the largest battle of
WWII.
The Battle of the Bulge
● The US won the battle. Over 800,000 Americans fought here and 80,000
Americans died.
● Germany fought with over 2 million soldiers, and lost about 200,000 men.
● After this battle, the Germans realized
the war was lost.
German Surrender
● The Americans continued to bomb
Germany and attack from the Western front, while the Soviets continued their attacks on Germany from the East.
● May 8, 1945: V-E Day: Germany
surrendered.
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.
War in the Pacific
● On Dec. 7, 1941, about one-half of General MacArthur’s air force was destroyed on the ground at Clark Air Field in the Philippines.
● Within days, a large Japanese force
landed in the Philippines and MacArthur withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula on
Manila Bay. There he set up defenses,
hoping the US Navy could evacuate his
men to safety.
The Philippines
● By March, 1942, FDR ordered General MacArthur to escape to Australia. He left with the words: “I shall return.”
● On May 6, 1942, 11,000 Americans and Filipinos surrendered. When the
Bataan Peninsula fell, approx. 76,000 Filipinos and Americans became
prisoners of war.
Bataan Death March
● Japanese soldiers split the prisoners into groups of 500-1000 and marched them 60 miles to a railroad.
● About 10,000 prisoners died during the 6 -12 day march and some were shot by the guards.
● Those who survived were shipped to
prison camps where they were held
captive for the rest of the war.
Bataan
● The Japanese general
responsible for organizing the
march was one of 6 Japanese
executed for war
crimes after the
war.
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.
● The US destroyed 3 of the 4 Japanese aircraft carriers while they were still
loading bombs in their planes. This
carried with it the loss of 250 Japanese planes.
● This was the last Japanese offensive.
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.
American Offensives
● The US first captured the rest of the Solomon islands and then the Gilbert islands.
● After seizing the island of Tarawa in the Gilbert islands, it was used by US
Admiral Nimitz to launch bombing raids on Japanese bases in the Marshall
islands.
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.
The Philippines
● Mid-October 1944: US forces invaded the Philippine island of Leyte. Although the US quickly captured the island, a
huge naval battle ensued.
● The Japanese used kamikaze pilots for the 1st time in this battle.
● The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest in Naval history, engaging more than
280 warships. As a result of the battle, the Japanese navy was virtually
destroyed.
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 Philippines
● After securing Leyte, the US invaded Luzon in an attempt to capture Manila, the capital city of the Philippines.
● In one month’s time, 100,000 Filipinos died, 80,000 Japanese died, and 27,000 Americans also perished.
● The US did not fully secure the
Philippines until June, 1945.
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.
Battle of Okinawa
● April-June 1945: In another bloody battle, nearly 100,000 Japanese
defended the island from an allied force of 180,000 soldiers and 1,300 warships.
● Japanese kamikazes launched nearly 2,000 attacks against the British and American fleets.
● This was the single bloodiest battle of
the Pacific war with nearly 50,000 allied
deaths and 93,000 Japanese deaths.
Okinawa
The Bombing of Hiroshima
●
August 6, 1945: On President Truman’s orders, the Enola Gay dropped an
atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.
●
