History chapt 9

factors which led to the end of WW2 in both Europe and Asia Pacific

• Strengths of the allies

  • American entry into the war (economic resources and manpower)

  • Allied strategies (D-day, island hopping, dropping of the atomic bomb)

  • Role of the Soviet Union

• Military weaknesses of Germany and Japan

  • Germany

    • Ineffective command structure

    • War on two fronts

  • Japan

    • Overextension of empire

    • Inability to access raw materials from empire

Turning points in favour of the allies during ww2

• Europe

  • Operation Barbarossa, 1941

  • Operation Overlord: D-Day, 1944

• Asia-Pacific

  • Battle of Midway, 1942

American entry into the war

• Economic and military power of the US

  • Between 1941 and 1945, US factories produced 250,000 aircraft, 90,000 tanks, 350 naval destroyers, 200 submarines and 5600 merchant ships

  • By 1944, the US was producing almost half of the weapons made globally

    • more than twice the production of Germany+Japan

Allied strategies in Asia-pacific

• Island-Hopping Strategy in Asia Pacific

  • Used air attacks and submarines to isolate Japanese-held areas, instead of trying to capture them

  • cut off supplies of food, ammunition and other essentials.

  • capture weak bases.

• Use of the Atomic bomb

  • Casualties in Hiroshima

    • 66,000 killed, 69,000 injured

  • Casualties in Nagasaki

    • 39,000 dead, 25,000 injured

Importance of the Soviet Union

• Survived Operation Barbarossa

  • German advance was halted due to the harsh winter in the late 1941

  • Victory in Stalingrad

  • allowed Stalin to reorganise the Red Army

• Reorganisation and resistance

  • Officers in the Red army were given greater freedom and independence to act. Stalin banned Communist Party officials from interfering with military decisions

  • Radio communications were adopted and radios were placed in all tanks and aircraft

  • Specialist units were created to listen in on German radio signals and disrupt them

  • Harsh discipline was used

    • Order 227: Not a Step Back, fight and die for every bit of Russian soil

  • Effective new weapons like the T-34 tank were developed and produced.

  • Specialist tank armies and air forces were made.

• Soviet war economy

  • Forced labour

  • produced a small range of reliable weapons in vast quantities

  • equalled and surpassed German war production in 1942

• Defeated the Kwantung army in Manchuria and occupied northern Korea.

Military weaknesses of Germany

• 2 front war

• Inefficient command structure

  • Dunkirk, May 1940

    • Hitler ordered German forces to halt at Dunkirk where the British and French armies were highly vulnerable and could’ve been destroyed.

  • Siege of Stalingrad, 1942

    • Hitler overruled his commanders who wanted to withdraw as he thought it was a matter of pride for the Russians.

  • Declared war on the US despite having no obligation to do so

Military weakness of Japan

• Overextension of the empire

  • Could not effectively leverage resources from conquered lands

  • large amounts of raw materials and finished goods had to be transported by sea

• Rivalry between the Army and Navy

  • prevented the sharing of resources, exchanging military intelligence and coordination of attacks.