Quiz 6 Flashcards
Synthetic Fuel
Petroleum products derived from coal, natural gas, biomass and other chemical products. This conversion process tends to be expensive but became vital to the Third Reich’s continuing existence during the last days of WWII.
WOLFSCHANZE
The “Wolf’s Lair,” Hitler’s headquarters on the Eastern Front in Poland, where he came closest to being assassinated in 1944.
JULY 20, 1944
Date of a near-fatal assassination attempt against Hitler at the Wolfschanze, led by a group of senior Wehrmacht officers.
CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG
A German military officer and war hero who planted a bomb at the Wolfschanze intended to kill Hitler.
OPERATION VALKYRIE
The code name for a plan approved by Hitler to activate Germany’s reserve army in the event that Allied bombing caused a complete breakdown of law and order. A group of anti-Nazi conspirators within the Wehrmacht, however, used this plan as a cover for an assassination attempt against Hitler on July 20, 1944.
ME-262 SCHWALBE (SWALLOW)
The first operational jet fighter. It also sported a swept-wing design which is characteristic of fighter jet aircraft to this day. It had about a 5 to 1 kill ratio
OPERATION GOMORRAH
Code name for a series of Allied air raids on the German city of Hamburg in July of 1943. These raids created the first firestorm in history, essentially a tornado of fire.
OMAHA BEACH
Code name for one of the Normandy beaches (the others were “Sword,” “Gold,” “Utah,” and “Juno.” A series of mishaps, strong defenses and unexpectedly fierce resistance by the Germans made Omaha the costliest of the landing areas on D-Day. American troops came ashore there.
REMAGEN
A German town on the Rhine famous for its Ludendorff Bridge (Ludendorff was a German general of WWI and a colleague of Paul von Hindenburg). The Germans mined the bridge, as they did all the other bridges over the Rhine, but the fuses were removed by Polish troops, preventing the bridge’s destruction
YALTA
A seaport and resort town in the Crimea on the Black Sea. Site of the last high-level conference among the original Big Three: Churchill, FDR and Stalin (Feb 4-11, 1945).
HARRY S. TRUMAN
The 33rd President of the United States, who came to power in April of 1945 upon the sudden death of Franklin Roosevelt. It would be his responsibility to oversee the end of WWII, many aspects of which he had been left in the dark about as Vice-President.
ELBE RIVER
A major river in eastern Germany. Dresden is the major German city on the Elbe. It arises in the Czech Republic, enters and crosses Germany, and empties into the North Sea near Cuxhaven.
TORGAU
A town on the Elbe in Germany, where Soviet troops first met their western counterparts from Britain, America and France on April 25, 1945. This Allied link-up signaled the end of the Third Reich which collapsed less than two weeks later.
VOLKSSTURM
A German National Guard established in October of 1944. It pressed into national service any male aged 16 to 60 who was not already in the German armed services. Elements of the Volkssturm in Berlin faced the Soviets when they entered the city in the last week of WWII.
EVA BRAUN
Adolf Hitler’s mistress. She married Hitler on April 29, 1945, and then committed suicide with him the next day in his command bunker under the Reich Chancellery building in Berlin, as Soviet troops were approaching.
ALBERT SPEER
Hitler’s long-time friend and personal architect. Together they planned and designed the Nuremberg Party Rallies of the 1930’s and the new buildings for the Thousand Year Reich.
TADAMICHI KURIBAYASHI
Japanese commander on Iwo Jima, killed in the final action of that battle, although his body was never positively identified.
MT. SURIBACHI
A mountain and dormant volcano on Iwo Jima. Site of the famous photograph of the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima shot by American photographer Joe Rosenthal.
JOE ROSENTHAL
American photographer famous for his photograph of the raising of the American flag on Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima.
YAMATO
The largest battleship ever built, sporting naval guns capable of launching shells 18” in diameter. It was sunk in April of 1945 off Okinawa, taking the majority of its 2800 man crew down with it.
U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS
American heavy cruiser tasked with delivering vital parts of the atomic bomb to be used at Hiroshima to the island of Tinian in the Marianas. Few people knew of its secret mission
Atomic bomb
The first nuclear device evidence ever invented
Manhattan Project
A secret Allied project, based in the U.S., to develop an atomic bomb during WWII.
Potsdam Project
The last high-level Allied conference of WWII, attended by Truman, Stalin, and Churchill, although Churchill was voted out of office during the conference and replaced by Clement Attlee, Britain’s new Prime Minister
Alamogordo
A small town in New Mexico and headquarters of the testing facility which exploded the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. The actual site of the explosion was in the desert 60 miles from Alamagordo.
July 16, 1945
The date when the Atomic Age began. The date of the first atomic explosion in history.
Trinity
Code name for the first atomic bomb test near Alamagordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The bomb fused the desert sand into a kind of radioactive green glass, later called Trinitite. The Trinity test was of a plutonium fission device.
Potsdam Declaration
Allied warning issued to Japan at the end of the Potsdam Conference to surrender or face annihilation. Four days later, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days after that, Nagasaki was bombed.
Little boy
The code name of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was a uranium fission device delivered by a B-29 named the Enola Gay.
Fat Man
The code name of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. It was a plutonium fission device delivered by a B-29 named Bockscar,
U-238
The most abundant, naturally occurring isotope (form) of the element uranium. Uranium itself is the largest naturally occurring atom, with a nucleus of 92 protons and 146 neutrons. About 99.2% of all uranium atoms are in this form
U-235
A rare isotope of uranium with a nucleus of 92 protons and 143 neutrons. Only about 0.7% of all uranium atoms are in this form, but this is the form most suitable for making an atomic bomb.
Pu-239
When U-238 is bombarded with slow neutrons, the nucleus often captures a neutron and becomes U-239. U-239 is very unstable and decays readily into neptunium-239 (Np-239), which is also unstable
CRITICAL MASS
Fissile materials explode whenever just enough mass is available to sustain a run-away reaction of free neutrons, called a chain reaction. The mass sufficient for explosion is called a critical mass.
PAUL TIBBETS
Pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima
HIROSHIMA
Japanese city on the island of Honshu. Site of an army headquarters and port facility during WWII. The first victim of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945
NAGASAKI
Second Japanese city to be a victim of the atomic bomb. In fact, to this day only Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been bombed with nuclear weapons
AUGUST 6, 1945
Date of the bombing of Hiroshima using Little Boy, dropped by the Enola Gay.
AUGUST 9, 1945
Date of the bombing of Nagasaki using Fat Man, dropped by Bockscar.
ENOLA GAY
The B-29 bomber which dropped the atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima, now in the Udvar-Hazy (Smithsonian) Air Museum in Washington, D.C.
BOCKSCAR
The B-29 bomber which dropped the atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, now in the National Museum of the Air Force at Dayton, Ohio.
OAK RIDGE
The town in Tennessee where the core of the uranium bomb used at Hiroshima was manufactured.
V-J DAY
August 15, 1945 in Asia (August 14 in America). Victory over Japan Day. The day that the Japanese agreed to surrender.
U.S.S. MISSOURI
An American battleship, also called the “Mighty Mo” and the “Big Mo.” One of the largest American battleships ever built, and it has the distinction of being the last American battleship ever built. Famous for its role in the surrender of Japan.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1945
Date of the formal surrender of Japan on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Also the official end of WWII.
DECOLONIALIZATION
European colonies across the globe, created in the late 19th century, were granted independence one by one after WWII. This process is called decolonialization.
NUREMBERG TRIALS
Trials of the leaders of Nazi Germany, held in the German town of Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949. Nuremberg had been the site of the Nazi Party rallies of the 1930’s and had enough intact buildings after the war to provide a venue for the trials.
TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIALS
Similar to the German war crimes trials at Nuremberg, the Tokyo trials began on May 3, 1946, and lasted until November 12, 1948. Trials were also held at various places in China. Twenty-eight major Japanese figures were tried out of the eighty detained after the war
