-
Pearl Harbor
A Japanese dive-bomber swooped low over Pearl Harbor-the largest U.S. naval base in the Pacific. The bomber was followed by more than 180 Japanese warplanes launched from 6 aircraft carriers. For an hour and a half, the Japanese planes were barely disturbed by U.S. antiaircraft guns and blasted target after target. -
U.S. and Britain Join forces
British Prime Minister Winston Churchil wired President Roosevelt two days after the Pearl Harbor attack. Roosevelt responded with an invitation for Churchill to come at once for a conference. -
War Plans
Prime Minister Churchill arrived at the White House and spent the next 3 weeks working out war plans with President Roosevelt and his advisors. They decided to attack Hitler first then move on to Japan. -
Period: to
The Battle of the Atlantic
The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. In late spring of 1943, Admiral Karl Doenitz, the commander of the German U-boat offensive, reported that his losses had "reached an unbearable height." By mid-1943, the tide of the Battle of the ATlantic had turned. -
Doolittle's Raid
A daring raid n Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Lt. Colonel James Doolittle led 16 bombers in the attack. The next day, Americans awoke to headlines that read "Tokyo Bombed! Doolittle Do'od It." -
Battle of the Coral Sea
They succeeded in stopping the Japanese drive toward Australia in the 5-day Battle of the Coral Sea. During the battle, the fighting was done by airplanes that took off from enormous aircraft carriers. -
The Battle of Midway
Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of American naval forces in the Pacific, moved to defend the island of Midway. On June 3,1942, his scout planes found the Japanese fleet. The Americans sent torpedo planes and dive bombers to the attack. The Japanese were cought with their planes still on the decks of their carriers. -
Period: to
The Battle of Stalingrad
The Germans army confidently approached Stalingrad. By the end of September they controlled 9/10 of the city-or what was left of it. Winter set in and the Soviet army surrounded the city, trapping the Germans. The German commander surendered on January 31, 1943. -
Period: to
North African Front
Instead of launching an invasion on European soil, they launched Operation Tourch, an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In Nov 1942, some 107,000 Allied troops, the great majority of them Americans, landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa. After months of heavy fighting, the last of the Afrika Korps surrendered in May 1943. -
Period: to
The Itlaian Campaign
The Italian Campaign got off to a good start with the capture of Sicily in the summer of 1943. Stunned by their army's collapse in Sicily, the Italian government forced dictator Benito Mussolini to resign. On July 25, 1943, King Victor Emmanuel III summoned Benito to his palace, stripped him of power, and had him arrested. But Hitler was determined to stop the Allies in Itlay rather than fight on German soil. The effort to free Itlay didn't succeed until 1945, when Germany was close to collapse. -
D-Day
To keep their plans secret, the Allies set up a huge phantom army with its own headquarters and equipment. In radio messages they knew the Germans could read, Allied commanders sent orders to this make-belive army to attack the French port Calais. As result, Hitler ordered his gernerals to kepps a larger army at Calais. June 6,1944, the first day of the invasion. -
Liberation of the Death Camps
Soviet troops were the first to come upon one of the Nazi death camps. As the Soviets drew near a camp called Majdanek in Poland, SS guards worked feverishly to bury and burn all evidence of their hideous crimes. But they ran out of time. When the Soviets entered Majdanek, they found a thousand starving prisoners barely alive, the world's largest crematorium, and a storehouse containing 800,000 shoes. -
Period: to
Battle of the Bulge
In October 1944, Americans captured their first German town, Aachen. Hitler sent his troops thriough the Allied lines to recapture the Belgian port of Antwerp. One December 16, under cover of fog, 8 German tank divisions broke through weak American defenses. -
Period: to
The Yalta Conference
The Allies pushed toward victory in Europe, an ailing Roosevelt had met with Churchill & Stalin at the Black Sea resort city of Yalta in the Soviet Union. Stalin graciously welcomed the president & the prime minister , and the Big Three, as they were called, toasted the defeat of Germany that now seemed certain. For 8 days, the 3 leaders discussed the fate of Germany & the postwar world. Stalin, his country devastated by German forces, favored a harsh approach. He wanted Germany divided. -
Period: to
The Battle for Okinawa
Marines invaded Okinawa, the Japanese unleashed more than 1,900 kamikaze attacks on the Allies during Okinawa campaign, sinking 30 ships, damaging more tan 300 more, and killing almost 5,000 seamen. Once ashore, the Allies faced even fiercer opposition than on Iwo Jima. By the time fighting ended on June 21, 1945, more than 7,600 Americans had died. But the Japanesee paid an even ghastlier price-110,000 lives-in defending Okinawa. -
Roosevelt's Death
While posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president had a stroke and died. -
Unconditional Surrender
The soviet army stormed Berlin. In his underground headquarters in Berlin, Hitler prepared for the end. One April 29, he married Eva Braun, his longtime compainion. The same day Hitler composed his last address to the German people. In it he blamed the Jews for sarting the war and his generals for losing it. The next day Hitler shot himself while his new wife swallowed posion. -
Unconditional Surrender cont.
The Allies celebrated V-E Day. The war was finally over. -
Period: to
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On August 6, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay released an atomic bomb, code-named Little Boy, over Hiroshima, an important Japanese military center. 43 seconds later, almost every building in the city collapsed into dust from the force of the blast. Still, Japan's leaders hesitated to surrender. 3 days later, a second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki, leveling half the city. By the end of the year, an estimated 200,000 people had died as a result of injuries and radiation poisoning.
