World War II Flashcards
Allied Powers
Axis Powers
Allied Powers: Great Britain, France, US, Soviet Union, China
Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan
Allied Powers have permanent seats on United Nations security council, hold veto power.
Invasion of Poland
September 1, 1939 and started WWII.
i. Hitler was successful in Poland because of blitzkrieg (lightning war) - military strategy that meant invading with fast-moving airplanes and tanks and then with a large amount of troops: purpose is to - take enemy by surprise and quickly overwhelm them.
ii. Stalin occupied Poland from east - also invaded Lithuania, Latvia, Ethiopia, and Finland.
iii. after the invasion of Poland - Britain and France declared war on Germany.
~French and British troops waited at the Maginot Line (line of fortifications between France and Germany)
~neither side attacked and first months of 1940 were known as the sitzkrieg (“sitting” war or phony war)
iv. April 1940: Hitler attacked Denmark and Norway instead (used them to attack Britain).
Fall of France
i. Hitler avoided the Maginot Line and invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg instead.
ii. German troops trapped the Allied Forces at Dunkirk but Britain sent 850 ships across the English Channel to rescue the troops (saved about 300,000).
iii. by June 1940 - Germany conquered France.
~Nazis took control of the northern half of France
~Vichy France: Nazis set up a puppet government in the South of France led by Marshall Petain.
~Charles de Gaulle sets up a Free France government in Britain
Battle of Britain
i. Hitler decided to invade Great Britain by destroying the Royal Air Force (RAF) with the Luftwaffle (German Air Force) and then invading with troops.
~air attack was known as Battle of Britain.
ii. Germany started to bomb British cities and thought they would break the British spirit and morale but it only made the British angrier and more determined to defeat Germany.
iii. Hitler realized that he could not win this battle and called off his attacks (Hitler’s first defeat).
iv. Britain led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Battle for Britain
London Blitz
Chronicles of Narnia (AIR ATTACK)
AT NIGHT
The Mediterranean and the Eastern Front
i. North Africa:
~Mussolini attempted to attack British - controlled Egypt to get control of the Suez Canal, but it was a disaster - Hitler sent Erwin Rommel (“the desert fox”) and German troops to help him.
ii. The Balkins:
~Hitler persuaded Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to join him and invaded Greece and Yugoslavia.
iii. Soviet Union: “Operation Barbarossa”
~Hitler broke their nonaggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
~the Soviet Union was caught completely by surprise.
iv. Nazi troops pushed 500 miles into the Soviet Union while the Soviet troops retreated and used the scorched-earth strategy - reached Moscow and Hitler refused to allow retreat.
~Hitler surrounded and lay siege to Leningrad for a year but they refused to surrender.
v. invading the Soviet Union did not gain Germany anything, cost 1/2 a million of German lives.
American Involvement in WWI before 1941
i. US didn’t want to get involved in another European war and passed the Neutrality Acts - made illegal to sell weapons or lend money to nations at war.
ii. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to help Allies:
~cash and carry - allies would pay cash for weapons and supplies and then “carry” them back to Europe on their own speech.
~Lend-lease act: president could lend weapons and supplies to any country important to the US.
iii. Atlantic Charter (1941): Roosevelt and Churchill met secretly and issued documents that said that all nations had the right to choose their own governments and nations could trade freely with each other - served as Allies’ plan of peace after WWII.
Attack on Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941 - “a date that will live in infamy”
i. Japan continued its attacks in Asia and threatened American power there so the US stopped selling oil to Japan.
ii. Japan attempted to eliminate America as a threat by attempting to attack America’s navy at Pearl Harbor. (More than 1/2 of fleet was there.)
iii. surprise attack begins on Sunday morning of December 7, 1941.
~about 2400 Americans died in the attack (1177 died when the USS Arizona blew up and sunk)
~21 ships including 8 battleships were either sunk or damaged; 164 were known
iv. attack unites America and US joins the war against the Axis.
Japanese Victories
i. Japan attacked America - controlled Guam, the Wake Island and the Philippines.
~Bataan Death March: Japanese forced captured American soldiers to march while facing abuse, beatings, punishments and killings.
ii. Japan then attacked Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, and Burma.
iii. by 1942: Japan controlled 1,000,000 mi.² of land and the 150 million people living there.
iv. Japan tried to convince the people they conquered that it was better to be ruled by other Asians instead of European imperialists but the Japanese treated them cruelly.
~ex— comfort woman: Japanese enslaved many women Iin the lands they conquered to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.
~Unit 731: Japanese doctors conducted (horrific) medical experiments on civilians (referred them as “logs”).
*dissections on live people without anesthesia (including pregnant woman) had organs removed.
*exposed people to extreme cold, heat, and pressure.
*prisoners would be hung upside down to see exactly how long one dies before being choked to death.
*exposed to various disease and radiation.
*also exposed some villages to plaque and other diseases.
*3000+ people died from unit 731.
* all doctors given immunity— can’t punishment or can’t be murdered. (given by the US)
Turning the Tide: The Allies Strike Back
i. The Doolittle Raid (1942): revenge for Pearl Harbor; bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities; didn’t actually do a lot of damage but was important to morale because it showed that Japan could be attacked.
ii. Battle of Coral Sea (1942): new naval battle strategy: instead of ships attacking each other, airplanes that took off from the huge aircraft carriers attacked each other.
iii. Battle of Midway (1942): turning point of war in West— Japan began to lose.
~Americans decoded Japanese messages and knew that they were going to attack Midway, set a trap for them.
~US troops were hiding and waited until Japanese started flying their planes before starting to bomb.
~Japan lost more than 300 plans and all four of their aircraft carriers.
iv. General Douglas MacArthur (commander of Allied land forced) developed the “island hop” strategy: do not attack islands that the Japanese have a lot of control over but skip them and attack islands that were not as well defended and closer to Japan.
v. Battle of Guadalcanal (1943): Japan loses many soldiers and abandons the island, began to retreat.
Victory in Europe
i. Battle of Stalingrad (1942): major turning point in the war on the eastern front.
~Germany attacked because it was a major industrial city.
~Urban warfare: German and Soviet soldiers fought building to building.
~Stalin ordered the city to be defended at all cost because it was named after him.
