Chtp. 23, World War 2

Question 1

Third Reich

Answer 1

what Hitler referred to Germany as

Question 2

Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact

Answer 2

Hitler signed agreement with Stalin in August, 1939; unbeknownst to the rest of this world, the Nazis and Soviets also agreed during this time that they would share in the partition of Poland, and that the Soviet Union could annex Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland

Question 3

blitzkrieg

Answer 3

meaning “lighting war,” it was Hitler’s method of attack, in which he would bombard heavily while moving forward quickly in such a way that it was very hard to stop his momentum; this term was used to describe Hitler’s attack against Poland

Question 4

Axis Powers

Answer 4

Japan, Germany, Italy, and the conquered territories constituted this group, which had formed by the early 1940s; it originally included the Soviet Union, but only until June 22, 1941

Question 5

Allied Powers

Answer 5

this group was composed of Great Britain and it’s empire as well as Commonwealth allies (Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), France and it’s empire, China, the Soviet Union (after June 22, 1941), and the United States and it’s Latin American allies

Question 6

sitzkrieg

Answer 6

the next six months of the war involved such little combat activity that the Germans nicknamed it this; others called it the “phony war”

Question 7

Maginot Line

Answer 7

this was what French and British troops settled in along at the beginning of the war; it was a fortified line along the French-German border

Question 8

Siegfried Line

Answer 8

this was what German troops settled in along at the beginning of the war; it was a fortified line along the French-German border

Question 9

Dunkirk

Answer 9

when the Germans reached the northern coast of France, Belgium surrendered; outnumbered and under heavy fire from the air, the Allies escaped to here, on the English Channel; there while trapped against the sea, one of the most heroic and miraculous rescues of the war occurred

Question 10

Vichy government

Answer 10

on June 22, 1940, France fell, and the Germans assumed control of northern France, while in the south, this Nazi-controlled government was set up with French Prime Minister Henri Petain (accent aigu on the e) as it’s puppet leader

Question 11

Charles de Gaulle

Answer 11

a French general who set up a government-in-exile in London; he was committed to reconquering France

Question 12

the Free French

Answer 12

this was De Gaulle’s army, which would battle the German occupation until the liberation of France in 1944

Question 13

Winston Churchill

Answer 13

the tenacious prime minister of Great Britain who refused to surrender to the German’s and led Britain during World War 2

Question 14

Operation Sea Lion

Answer 14

Hitler’s plan against Great Britain, which began with the bombing of Britain by the German air force between September 1940 and May 1941; the air war, called “The Blitz” by the British, showered bombs in major metropolitan areas, including London; the British continued fighting, in spite of more than 40,000 civilian casualties

Question 15

Luftwaffe

Answer 15

the German air force

Question 16

RAF (Royal Air Force)

Answer 16

the British air force, which was assisted by a new invention called radar, and was thus able to track incoming German aircraft and quickly reach them in the air; RAF resistance caused Hitler to suspend the bombing of Britain in May 1941

Question 17

Battle of Britain

Answer 17

the operations that were waged between Germany and Britain at the outset of the war; the success of Britain in resisting the Germans here proved that Hitler’s forces could be repelled

Question 18

Mussolini’s Africa push

Answer 18

while the attacks against Great Britain were in progress, Mussolini turned his attentions to Africa, planning to take the Suez Canal; the British retaliated, routing the Italians and taking more than 100,000 prisoners

Question 19

Erwin Rommel

Answer 19

in February 1941, Hitler sent this General, known as “The Desert Fox” to Libya to command a tank corps called the Afrika Korps; after Rommel defeated the British in Libya, they retreated to Tobruk

Question 20

Operation Barbarossa

Answer 20

this attack began on June 22, 1941; it was Hitler’s invasion of the USSR; the Soviet army, the largest in the world, was unprepared for invasion; overall it was one of Hitler’s greatest mistakes; 500,000 German soldiers died just from the cold of the Russian winter

Question 21

scorched earth policy

Answer 21

a tactic that the Russians had used against Napoleon which they now employed against Hitler; with this, the Soviets burned everything that was in the path of the invading Germans, and removed or destroyed anything that could potentially be useful to them

Question 22

siege of Leningrad

Answer 22

during the German offensive into Russia, the Germans subjected the city of Leningrad to a siege for 872 days; the city successfully held out

Question 23

Battle of Stalingrad

Answer 23

as the German offensive continued, it became increasingly focused on taking the city of Stalingrad, which was an important industrial center; it was at this battle that the Germans were turned back from their goal, while also suffering heavy losses

Question 24

Nuremberg Laws

Answer 24

laws set down by the German government in 1935 that prohibited Jews from becoming German citizens and from owning property; they were also forced to wear a bright yellow Star of David on their clothing for identification

Question 25

Final Solution

Answer 25

by 1941, Hitler had decided that a program of genocide was necessary to eliminate the Jews; the purity of the Aryan race had to be protected; as part of this, Hitler also targeted other groups he perceived as inferior, such as Poles, Russians, homosexuals, gypsies, and the sick or disabled

Question 26

ghettos

Answer 26

segregated communities into which Jewish people in Nazi countries were forced to reside; the Nazis closed of these areas with walls and barbed wire

Question 27

Lend-Lease Act

Answer 27

by 1941, President Roosevelt convinced Congress to pass this act, which authorized the president to lend or lease arms and other supplies to any nation considered vital to the United States

Question 28

undeclared war

Answer 28

when the US Navy began escorting British ships carrying US arms, Hitler ordered his U-boats to sink any cargo ships; in September 1941, a German submarine fired on a US destroyer in the Atlantic; when Roosevelt ordered US ships to respond, he was, in effect, engaging the US in an undeclared war on Germany

Question 29

Atlantic Charter

Answer 29

on August 9, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met secretly on a battleship off the coast of Newfoundland; the product of the meeting was this, which advocated free trade among nations and the right of people to select their own government

Question 30

Manchukuo

Answer 30

the name of the puppet state that Japan established in Manchuria

Question 31

Rape of Nanjing, aka the Nanjing Massacre

Answer 31

the Japanese were known for their brutality; in this incident, the Japanese raped thousands of women and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians and unarmed soldiers; this occurred when the Japanese captured the Japanese city of Nanjing

Question 32

Isoroku Yamamoto

Answer 32

on December 7, 1941, the strategy of this Japanese admiral erupted in a Japanese attack on the US Pacific fleet anchored at Peal Harbor in Hawaii; in less then two hours, the Japanese sank or severely damaged most of the US Pacific fleet and killed about 2,400 American sailors; the US declared war on Japan the very next day

Question 33

Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle

Answer 33

following Japan’s early victories in the Pacific, their victory seemed unstoppable, but in 1942 the US retaliated by sending a force under the command of this leader to bomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities; although it did little damage, it was important psychologically because it demonstrated that the Japanese could be attacked

Question 34

Admiral Chester Nimitz

Answer 34

in June 1942, the Japanese assembled the world’s largest naval force and approached Midway Island, a US possession west of Hawaii; this leader surprised the Japanese by attacking with carrier-based planes; ultimately, this battle turned the tide of the battle in the Pacific in favor of the Allies

Question 35

island hopping

Answer 35

the US strategy in the Pacific of seizing key strategic islands around Japanese strongholds

Question 36

General Douglas MacArthur

Answer 36

a commander of the Allied land forces in the Pacific, he proposed the strategy of island-hopping

Question 37

Dwight Eisenhower

Answer 37

a general who in May 1943 defeated the Afrika Korps

Question 38

Allied victory

Answer 38

in late 1942, the Allies began reversing the progress of the war by winning the Battle of el Alamein in Egypt; in May 1943, under General Dwight Eisenhower, the Allies defeated the Afrika Korps; at Stalingrad, the Russian winter took the lives of over 200,000 German soldiers; in July 1943 the Allies captured Sicily; the Allies entered Rome on June 4, 1944

Question 39

Nisei

Answer 39

Japanese Americans who had been born in the United States

Question 40

Japanese American internment

Answer 40

Japanese Americans living in the US and especially in Hawaii following December 7, 1941 were subjected to prejudice and fear, and in February 1942, President Roosevelt decided to round up and intern Japanese Americans for the duration of the war; despite having their relatives interned, many other Japanese Americans fought bravely for their country

Question 41

Operation Overlord

Answer 41

this was one of the final Allied pushes toward victory; it consisted of the invasion of Normandy in northwestern France, which was the largest land and sea attack in history (at that point)

Question 42

D-Day and H-Hour

Answer 42

in the military, both of these are terms used to refer to the time when an operation commences; one refers to the day, the other to the hour; D -/+ and H -/+ a certain number indicates how long before or after the operation commences something is planned to happen

Question 43

D-Day

Answer 43

a common term used to refer to Operation Overlord; the actual date was June 6, 1944

Question 44

kamikaze

Answer 44

Japanese suicide pilots who dove their planes into American ships, essentially used their planes as man-driven missiles; this was especially prevalent during the battles of Okinawa, which were completed in June, 1945 with an American victory

Question 45

Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

Answer 45

this was what the Japanese were aiming to achieve; it was basically an Asia free from Western influence and dominated by Japan; they continued their efforts to achieve this even after Germany was defeated

Question 46

President Truman

Answer 46

the President after Franklin Roosevelt, it was he who presided over the US during the closing of the war in Japan, which was executed via atomic bomb; the two A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are first and only atomic weapons ever to have been used in the world; the names of the two bombs were Little Boy and Fat Man

Question 47

Manhattan Project

Answer 47

a government project that had been conducted to produce the first A-bomb (atomic bomb), it was undertaken under the direction of the scientist Robert Oppenheimer

Question 48

Nuremberg Trials

Answer 48

at these trials in 1946, 22 Nazi leaders were charged with war crimes, and 12 were sentenced to death

Question 49

Emperor Hirohito

Answer 49

allegiance to this emperor was religious in nature, because the Japanese considered him to be divine; as such, one of the conditions of Japanese surrender was that he was forced to declare that he was not divine and took on the role of only a figurehead in the new Japanese government