US History - Chapter 19

World War 2

Hirohito

• Emperor of Japan during WW2 (1939-1945)

• was worshipped as a god by his people, but they never got to hear or see him

Facism

• a political and economic system promoting extreme nationalism and emphasizing militarism

• characterized by dictatorial, one-party rule, and by totalitarianism,, a system of government that regulates every aspect of life

• opposes communism

Benito Mussolini

• Prime minister of Italy during WW2

• called "Il Duce”

• followed by the Black Shirts

• part of the Axis Powers

Adolf Hitler

• Chancellor of Germany during WW2

• led the Nazi Party

• part of the Axis Powers

Axis Powers

• Italy

• Germany

• Japan

Joseph Stalin

• leader of Russia during WW2

• communist leader

• did not join the Allied Powers until a long time later

Appeasement

yielding to an aggressor’s demands in order to preserve peace

What three lands did Germany try to take back?

• Rhineland (an industrial region of Germany near Alsace-Lorraine)

• Austria (to make the Anschluss)

• Sudetenland

Nazi-Soviet Pact

• Germany and Russia enter a non-aggression pact, agreeing that they would not attack each other for a period of ten years

• ended when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa

blitzkrieg

• lightning war

• September 1, 1939, sixteen hundred Luftwaffe (German Nazi air force) aircraft bombed military and civilian targets while 1.5 million German soldiers rolled across the Polish border

Allied Powers

• Britain

• France

• (Later) U.S. and Russia

Dunkirk

• German forces drove the Alllied troops northward to the French port of Dunkirk on the English Channel and surrounded them.

• Hitler had ordered his army to stop its advance and allow the Luftwaffe to destroy the enemy, but a dense fog settled over the channel, preventing the Luftwaffe from bombing

• The Allies would use the fog as a way to help rescue about 338k of the 400k trapped men, leaving behind almos all their weapons and equipment

Winston Churchill

• became Prime Minister of Britain following the French’s surrender on June 22, 1940

• opposed appeasement of Germany

• inspired the British with his grand defiance and fighting spirit

Battle of Britain

• took place between the Luftwaffe and the British Royal Air Force (RAF) in the skies above southern England and the Channel

• the British were able to successfully repel the Germain attack

• Germany lost 1,733 aircraft, while the RAF lost 915 planes

Operation Barbarossa

• Hitler disregarded the non-aggression pact and launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union

• Germany attacked Leningrad, Moscow, and Kiev, Ukraine

• the Nazis were not able to withstand the harsh weather, which allowed the Soviets to push back Hitler’s troops and keep them from victory

Neutrality Act of 1937

• passed by Congress to avoid similar issues that brought America into WW1

• forbade US citizens from traveling on the ships of nations at war and forbade the sale of arms and war materials to those nations

• prevented the arming of American merchant ships and prohibited those ships from transporting arms, even those produced outside the US, to nations in war

“cash and carry”

a policy that allowed belligerent nations to purchase non-weapons from the US on a cash basis and transport them on non-American ships

Neutrality Act of 1939

extended the cash and carry policy but now allowed for it to include the sale of arms to belligerent nations

Lend-Lease Act

• signed by FDR on March 11, 1941

• empowered the president to lend or lease, rather than sell, food and armaments to Britain and other allies

• through this, the US was able to send China one hundred fighter planes: the “Flying Tigers,” organized by Claire Chennault

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

• Japanese aircraft attacked the American base, destroying more than three hundred US planes and sinking or damaging eight battleships and thirteen other warships

• 2,403 Americans died, and 1,200 were wounded

• However, Japan missed the vital aircraft carriers, failed to completely destroy the American naval base, and they basically inspired the US to enter the war

• took place on December 7, 1941

December 8, 1941

• US Congress and Britain declared war on Japan

• the US officially joins the war

Tuskegee Airmen

• an all-Black unit of the US Army Air Corps

• led by Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Davis, Jr.

“Navajo code talkers”

the Navajos who served in the US marines and created code in their language, which frustrated Japanese code breakers throughout the entire war

War Production Board (WPB)

• began operation in January 1942

• halted nearly all domestic building construction to conserve materials for war production

• production of many consumer gods was discontinued through much of the war because the WPB ordered factories to convert from civillian to military production

Office of War Information (OWI)

• created by FDR to inform Americans about the war and to create propaganda to rally support for the war effort

• Hollywood director Frank Capra created a film series for the army, Why We Fight, to illustrate the danger of fascism

Operation Torch

• US General Dwight D. Eisenhower used 850 ships to land troops on the west coast of Africa at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers

• the last German outpost at Tunis fell on May 13, 1943

Operation Husky

• 3k ships and landing craft carried Allied troops and equipment to the island of Sicily

• the Italian government would remove Mussolini from power

• Italian and German armies withdrew to the mainland by August, leaving Sicily as an Allied base

D-Day

• the invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord) began the morning of June 6, 1944

• over 20k paratroopers and soldiers in gliders landed behind German lines in the darkness

• they cut vital transportation and communication lines and captured key bridges and roads for miles around the invasion site

• the Allies controlled the skies and bombed roads, bridges, and supply depots to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the front

Battle of the Bulge

• Hitler unleashed a counteroffensive out of Belgium’s Ardennes Forest against the weakest point in the Allied line, surprising the troops

• the US were able to squeeze the bulge back

• cost Hitler 100k casualties, nearly 1k aircraft, and 800 tanks

Harry Truman

the new commander in chief (President) of the US after Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage

Holocaust

the mass murder of millions of people caused by the Nazis

V-E Day

• victory in Europe day

• May 7th, the Nazis surrendered

Douglas MacArthur

• commander of the US Army forces in the Pacific

• promised the Philippines that he would return before leaving for Australia

Bataan Death March

the Japanese forced the American and Filipino prisoners to make a brutal 65 mile march to prison camps

Doolittle Raid

• volunteer crews under Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle set out with sixteen B-25s aboard the carrier USS Hornet which secretly sailed within 625 miles of Japan

• was successful in bombing Tokyo and three other Japanese cities

Chester Nimitz

US Admiral who ordered two carriers to the Coral Sea to stop the Japanese advance

Battle of the Coral Sea

• the Japanese and American fleets never saw one another

• the battle was conducted entirely by navy planes attempting to attack the enemy’s ships

Battle of Midway

• Admiral Nimitz skillfully directed his carrier forces, which destroyed four Japanese carriers

• this battle turned the tide of the war as the Allies now went on the offensive in the Pacific

“Island Hopping”

a strategy used by the Americans since it was impossible to capture all of the thousands of Pacific islands

Battle of Leyte Gulf

• the largest naval battle in history, and a critical blow to Japanese naval and air forces

• Japan lost 3 battleships, 9 cruisers, 10 destroyers, and 180 aircraft

• Kamikazes were present and soon no longer present (they died)

Kamikazes

organized squadrons of suicide pilots who were willing to kill themselves to destroy American war ships

Battle of Iwo Jima

• the toughest, costliest battle of the Marine Corp’s history

• 70k marines fought against 21k entrenched Japanese defenders for every foot of black sand

• more than 6,800 American marines were killed, and 20k were wounded before they took the island

Battle of Okinawa

• the bloodiest battle in the Pacific theater

• 12k American servicemen were killed; 50k wounded

• tens of thousands of Okinawan civilians died

• Japanese soldiers distributed grenades to civilians, ordering them to throw all but one at the American soldiers and to use the last one to commit suicide

Manhattan Project

• Physicist Albert Einstein warned FDR that the Germans were trying to develop an atomic bomb

• thousands of scientists, engineers, and chemists led by Oppenheimer worked at research laboratories and testing facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico

• the atomic bomb was produced

Hiroshima

• the city in Japan where the first atomic bomb was dropped after Japan refused to surrender

• more than 70k of 200k residents died that day

Nagasaki

• the second city destroyed by the atomic bomb

• 40k of 200k residents were killed

V-J Day

• Japan surrenders September 2, 1945

• Victory over Japan