World War IIWorld War II

1939 to 19451939 to 1945

BlitzkriegBlitzkrieg

The German approach to WarThe German approach to War

““Lightning War”Lightning War”

Germany conquered Poland in 4 weeks.Germany conquered Poland in 4 weeks. In the Spring of 1940, Hitler turned his In the Spring of 1940, Hitler turned his

blitzkrieg toward the West.blitzkrieg toward the West. Denmark fell in one day.Denmark fell in one day. Norway fell in six weeks.Norway fell in six weeks. Holland fell in five days.Holland fell in five days. Luxembourg and Belgium fell two weeks later.Luxembourg and Belgium fell two weeks later. France was occupied by Germany.France was occupied by Germany. Then came the battle of Britain . . .Then came the battle of Britain . . .

The Battle of BritainThe Battle of Britain

Began August 8, 1940Began August 8, 1940 Germans bombed British ports and Germans bombed British ports and

airfields.airfields. Britain won the air battle.Britain won the air battle. Hitler “postponed” the battle and it never Hitler “postponed” the battle and it never

resurfaced. He instead turned to eastern resurfaced. He instead turned to eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Europe and the Soviet Union.

In March, 1938, Hitler forced Austria to unite with Germany, claiming that all members of the German race belonged to one country. Within twelve months, he had seized Czechoslovakia. Britain and France, in the vain hope that this invasion would satisfy the Nazis’ appetite for empire, did nothing. But on September 1, 1939, German tanks rolled into Poland.

Prompted by the invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. But they were unprepared for the speed and ruthlessness of the Nazis. Hitler, now dictator over a country he called “the Third Reich” (Rike – which means empire), conquered Poland in less than a month. He then turned his attention west, moving his well-equipped troops, tanks, and aircraft into Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. On June 14, 1940, the red, white, and black swastika flag flew over Paris. France had fallen to the Nazis. Britain was the only Western power still free from Hitler’s oppression.

D-Day and the War D-Day and the War in the Pacificin the Pacific

Once the Allies had decided upon a crosschannel invasion of France, they began amassing enormous supplies of munitions and troops, totaling nearly 3 million men.

American General Dwight D. Eisenhower was selected to lead the Allied forces into France.

Although Americans formed the majority of those involved in the military campaign, the British and Canadians also committed troops.

During the months leading up to the scheduled invasion, the Allies focused on dropping enough bombs to take out French rail centers and road networks, effectively isolating the Normandy region of France, where the invasion was scheduled to occur.

Final PlansFinal Plans

Final plans for the invasion were kept very secret – even many of the soldiers did not know where they would be landing.

The Germans expected the Allies to land at the narrowest part of the English Channel, and Eisenhower encouraged this expectation by focusing the Allied bombing campaign in this region.

Despite this successful subterfuge, the Allies still encountered stiff resistance from the Germans when they landed at a series of points farther east along the Normandy coast on D-Day, June 6, 1944, a day later than originally planned.

The D-Day invasion was a masterful coordination of Allied land, sea and air power.

The night before the attack, the Allies dropped paratroopers behind the German lines.

With this advance force on French soil, airplanes and battleships bombarded the German defenses, while some 4,000 ships landed troops and supplies on the Normandy beaches.

After several days of intense fighting, the Allies secured the beachhead and then managed to break through the German forces encircling the Normandy landing zone.

Following D-DayFollowing D-Day Allies continued fighting inland. Little more than two months after D-Day, Allied forces,

with the help of the French “underground resistance,” arrived in Paris.

In August 1944, the Allies liberated the jubilant city from four years of German occupation.

By mid-September, the Allies had driven the Germans almost completely out of France and Belgium.

Another Allied victory against Hitler’s forces on Germany’s western border at the Battle of the Bulge, in December 1944, ended serious German resistance in the west.

Soviet troops, meanwhile, were sweeping westward across central Europe and into Eastern Germany.

LiberationLiberation

As the Allies moved into Germany, they encountered the horrific sight of Nazi concentration camps, where the Nazis had been systematically murdering “undesirables,” including millions of Jews.

Even though the Allied leaders had known about Hitler’s campaign of genocide for some time, neither the Allied soldiers nor the rest of the world were prepared for the extent of human misery that they found.

Only as the Allied forces began liberating the camps did they grasp the full dimensions of the “Holocaust.”

With the Allied forces virtually at his doorstep, Adolf Hitler killed himself in his bunker in Berlin on April 30.

The remaining German forces surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945, bringing “V-E Day,” Victory in Europe.

Plans for Peace Plans for Peace and the Atomic and the Atomic BombBomb

Severely crippled by the American campaign, the Japanese began to explore options for peace through envoys in Russia. Japan, however, showed no willingness to surrender unconditionally, as the Allies insisted. Meeting together at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin, in July 1945, Churchill, Truman and Stalin issued Japan a stern ultimatum: surrender or be destroyed. When Japan refused, the United States, faced with a mounting death toll, carried out its threat.

On August 6, the U.S. sent a lone American bomber to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing some 80,000 people instantly and wounding tens of thousands of others. When the Japanese still failed to surrender, even in the face of invading Soviet forces, the U.S. decided to act again. Three days later, on August 9, American pilots dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. On August 9th, another atomic weapon was dropped on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people and injuring approximately the same number.Unable to resist further,

Japanese leaders sued for peace on August 10, 1945, asking only that their Emperor, Hirohito (Hiro-he-tow), be allowed to remain on his throne, though stripped of power.

Four days later, the Allies Four days later, the Allies accepted Japan’s conditions. On September 2,

1945, the Allies held official surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay, while

Americans at home celebrated “V-J Day”– Victory in

Japan.

Despite Americans’ wild victory celebrations at V-E and V-J days in 1945, the costs of four years of military conflict hung heavily over the nation. More than 300,000 members of the American armed forces had been killed in combat, with more than three times that number wounded. Yet heavy though these losses were, Americans actually suffered relatively little in comparison with others engaged in the military conflict. While much of the rest of the world lay in ruins, the United States emerged from the war in a position of unprecedented power, poised to assume leadership of the “free world.”