A Brief Overview of the Second World War

The Origins of War

•Adolph Hitler•He exploited the German

bitterness over the Treaty of Versailles•Became German Chancellor in 1933•Quickly rose to dictator

•Lebensraum: translated “living Space”, Hitler’s theory, he wanted to create a German Empire for his people so that they could spread out comfortably•Ambitions soon became a threat to world peace

A picture of the young Chancellor

c. 1928

Japan Strikes First

•Japanese military overthrows the government

•Emperor Herohito takes charge of the new empire•Japan invades Manchuria

in 1931 and begins colonization•Mainland China is invaded in 1937

•2 years before Hitler’s advance on Poland•Pacific islands are

invaded and taken over

Emperor Herohito surveying his troops

from horseback

C. 1920

A Japanese “Zero” fighter plane

flying in formation

Appeasement

• Britain and France and the Treaty of Versailles– Believed the treaty allowed Hitler to come to power

– If some of the restriction were lessened, the situation in Germany would improve

• Western powers feared Stalin more than Hitler– Communism and Nazism were natural enemies

– If Hitler was allowed more power, he would keep Stalin in check

• WWI was still fresh in everyone’s mind

War Breaks Out in Europe

•Germany invades Poland in September of 1939

•Beginning of the “Phony War” (1939-1940)

•France declares war on Germany, but no action is taken, except fortification

•“Blitzkrieg” (1940)•Germany avoids France’s well defended border by moving it’s tanks and troop through Belgium•France’s Maginot Line (border fortification) gets flanked, and the country soon falls into Nazi hands

Europe just before

Germany’s invasion of

Poland

The Maginot Line’s

anti-tank barriers

Vichy France

• Northern France is occupied by Germans

• Southern France is allowed to rule itself– A puppet government is installed– Allowed to rule over African colonies– Illusion that France still has an empire

“Finest Hour”-Sir Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

“We Shall Fight on the Beaches”-Sir Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940

We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Battle of Britain (July, 1940)• British island is the only part of Europe not under

Hitler’s control• Germany starts an air war, to be followed by a ground

invasion– Nightly bombing of large cities– Supposed to break the will of the British– Only made them more resistant

• Winston Churchill rallied his people, "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.“

• British win the air war, first major Nazi defeat– New technology: radar– Enigma Machine: broke German codes

“The Few”-Sir Winston Churchill, August 20, 1940

The great air battle which has been in progress over this Island for the last few weeks has recently attained a high intensity. It is too soon to attempt to assign limits either to its scale or to its duration. We must certainly expect that greater efforts will be made by the enemy than any he has so far put forth. Hostile air fields are still being developed in France and the Low Countries, and the movement of squadrons and material for attacking us is still proceeding.

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

U.S. Involvement

Factors of U.S. Involvement

•In the fall of 1941, the U.S. is involved in an undeclared naval battle with the Germans to protect it’s trading vessels

•FDR orders an embargo against Japan in the summer of 1941 after it invaded French Indo-China

•U.S. Supplied arms and goods to Allied powers starting in 1939

•Fearing that war with the U.S. is inevitable, Emperor Herohito decides to preemptively strike the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941

Pearl Harbor burns after Japanese attack

U.S. routes of supply to Allied forces

•In March of 1941, the U.S. begins “lending” arms to the Allies

“War Message”-FDR, December 8, 1941

Yesterday, December 7, 1941- a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

1942: U.S. on the Defensive

•After Pearl Harbor, Japan advanced quickly over the Pacific

•By mid-1942, Japan had seized the Philippines, Guam and Wake Islands

•Soon, they are poised to take Australia and Hawaii

•In June of 1942, Japan’s secret code was broken by the U.S.

The carrier Hiryu, one of Four Japanese carriers sunk off the

coast of Midway

•Japan attacked the Midway Islands on June 5, 1942 and the U.S. knew they were coming

•The Japanese Navy met unexpected resistance (the entire U.S. fleet) and their Pacific push was halted

On the Home Front: 1942

•As young American’s volunteer for military service, there is a labor shortage in the U.S.

•The government mobilizes all citizens in the war effort

•“Rosie the Riveter” campaign•The government tries to

get women to replace men in the factories by assuring them they can do it•West coast Japanese-Americans were

arrested and detained in internment camps

“Rosie the Riveter”

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Government issued

instructions for all

Japanese-Americans to

report to interment

camps

•The theory was that the camps would be a way of eliminating spies

•The only way to avoid going into internment camps was to join the military

•Germany broke a weak peace agreement with Russia and invaded in June of 1941

•Initially, the Russian campaign was a great success for the Germans

•German troops froze on their way to Moscow in the winter of 1941

•German troops retreated, regrouped and attacked southern Russia in 1942

•Russian leader Joseph Stalin begged the allies for a second front against Germany

Joseph Stalin in 1950

Part of Stalingra

d, destroyed and in German Hands

•The advance was stopped at the Russian city of Stalingrad

•Russia lost more troops fighting to keep control over Stalingrad then the U.S. lost in the entire war

Operation Barbarossa

Einsatzgruppen

• Special German forces that follow the regular army• Only job was mass murder

– Execute all POW’s– Army, civilians, women, children

• Given lots of liquor• Progress slowly from army to babies• High desertion rate, suicide rate, alcoholism• Hitler looks for a way to murder large numbers of

people without the mental toll on the soldiers

The Einsatzgruppen in Action in Poland

The War’s End in Europe 1944-1945

•Allies invade Normandy on June 6, 1944

•Largest amphibious assault in history

•July-September 1944:

France gets liberated

•Soviets advance from the east and capture Berlin, Hitler commits suicide

Looking out from a

landing craft on

the beaches of Normandy

June6, 1944

German prisoners

taken at the “Battle of the

Bulge”

•Battle of the Bulge: December 1944•Germany’s final effort to stop

allied advances on Berlin

•Battle lasts 1 month and when Germany loses, their defeat is assured

•D-Day

The War’s End in the Pacific 1944-1945

•American strategy: “Island Hopping”

•The U.S. would attack only those islands that were weakly defended

•Strategy cut off the supply lines of the well defended islands and choked them•Oct. 1944: MacArthur captures the

Philippines, he had vowed he would return since the beginning of the war

•U.S. drops two atomic bombs, one on Nagasaki, one on Hiroshima, Japan soon surrenders

U.S. Troops celebrating atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima

General MacArthur signs Japan’s surrender, ending WWII

•The capture of Iwo Jima takes 1 month and claims the lives of thousands of troops•The U.S. now fears the upcoming

invasion of mainland Japan