World War II Flashcards
What phrase is associated with this image, which originated as a pop culture expression and form of graffiti during WWII.
“Kilroy Was Here”
Race riots during World War II in Los Angeles that primarily targeted Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are widely known by a term that references what specific apparel item, which was popular among the victimized communities as a symbol of new-found prosperity?
Zoot Suit
Women formed about 75% of the workforce at Bletchley Park, a British wartime site that was tasked with what?
Codebreaking
Bletchley Park was the site of the Government Code and Cypher School, which regulary penetrated Axis communications, most notably the Enigma and Lorenz ciphers.
Marshal Rydz-Smigly was the commander in chief of this country’s army when it was invaded in 1939.
Poland
What happened on September 1, 1939, the date usually given as the beginning of World War II?
Hitler invaded Poland
Italy’s Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale were known commonly by this term, which referenced the articles of clothing they wore.
Blackshirts
This 1940 agreement created a defensive pact between Germany, Italy and Japan. In the following year it saw additional signatories, including Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.
Tripartite Pact / Berlin Pact
This was the codename given to the Axis’ 1941 attempated invasion of the western USSR. The name coincides with that of several Italian wine grapes.
Operation Barbarossa
Some historians argue that the outbreak of WWII should be dated to a 1937 event known in English as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which sparked the conflagration between what two ancient (and present) rivals?
China, Japan
The area around which Russian city was the site of the largest tank battle in history in 1943?
Kursk
What does the German phrase ““Arbeit macht frei” on the infamous sign over the Auschwitz concentration camp entrance translate to in English?
Works Sets You Free
The 1938 Munich Agreement, which led to Neville Chamberlain’s now-infamous declaration of “peace for our time,” authorized Nazi Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakian territory that is best known by what name?
Sudetenland
What was the first city liberated by the 1944 D-Day invasion, though it’s closely associated with a work of art from a very different invasion?
Bayeux
From June 1948 until September 1949, crews from the United States Air Force, the British Royal Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the French Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the South African Air Force coordinated in a non-combat mission over what city?
Berlin
Name the man who became Japan’s War Minister in 1940 and Prime Minister in 1941, serving the latter role until 1944. He was hanged as a war criminal in December 1948.
Hideki Tojo
This German word refers to the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938.
Anschluss
This is the name given to the square-pyramidal fortifications of reinforced concrete first used during the Second World War to impede the movement of tanks and mechanised infantry.
Dragon’s Teeth
While it is today a peninsular province located in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines, it is historically associated with a 1942 World War II battle of the same name as well as the ensuing “Death March” during which Filipino and American soldiers were transferred to POW camps by the Japanese military.
Bataan
This was the name of the Anglo-American invasion of French-controlled Northern Africa during World War II. Led by General Dwight Eisenhower in November 1942, it was aimed at reducing pressure on Allied forces in Egypt, and enabling an invasion of Southern Europe.
Operation Torch
This fleet admiral of the U.S. Navy played a major role in World War II as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas, commanding Allied air, land and sea forces. He was the last surviving officer who served in the rank of fleet admiral.
Chester W. Nimitz