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Germany Gets What It Wants
At the Munich Conference Hitler had demanded that he be allowed to take Sudetenland. Winston Churchill thinking that appeasment was the best way to keep the peace allowed him to have it so long as he respected the borders of Czechoslovakia. Hitler agreed. Less than six months later Hitler took Czechoslovakia. Then he decided he wanted the return of a once German now Polish port. The Poles refused and sought the help of Britain and France who granted it, but Hitler was doubtfull after the appease -
Preventing war on two fronts
The nonaggression pact was sign by the Soviets and the Nazis on August 23. They had agreed that they would never attack one another and treat each other in a neighborly fashion. With this treaty Hitler had ensured he would only have to fight the war on a single front. -
Germnay Takes Poland (Axis Victory)
After solving the problem of Russia providing a second front for germany to fight on, Hitler quickly went ahead with his plan to conquer Poland and. It began with heavy carpet bombing, also know as blitzkrieg tactics which was followed by a large amount of ground forces and a merciless assualt on Warsaw, the capital, by artillery and bombers. Two days later France and Britain declared war on Germany, but they were too late. Poland fell three weeks before either country could make their move. -
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Phony War
They Phony war was a strange expanse of no fighting for several months after Germany's attack on Poland. Germany, France, and Britain had all gathered along the Maginot line, but no one made a move. It ended on the 9th of April when Hitler launched a surprise attack pon Denmark and Norway. -
Germany's Sweep
In May of 1940 Hitler sent a diversionary force that swept through Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. These successful attack were merely to get the Allies minds off other things. Those things being an even bigger force which snuck through the Ardennes, a heavily wooded area in northeastern France, which was a successful tacting in getting past the Maginot Line. They then swept across France meeting the norther coast in ten days. -
France Makes a Stand
The Allied forces had been trapped in the city of Lille. Outnumbered and OUtgunned Belgium surrendered while the Allies escaped to the port city that was Dunkirk. They were in trouble with there back pressed up against the sea. However with an overwhelming armada of 850 ships ranging from Royal Navy ships to yachts the British crossed the channel and were able to save 338,000 soldiers. -
Behind Enemy Lines
While France surrender on the 22nd, French general Charles de Gaulle hid in London where he set up a government in exile ready to reclaim France. From there he went on to set up the Free French military forces who battled the Nazis behind the line untill France was liberated in 1944. -
Battle of Britain (Allied Victory)
Hitler had planned Operation Sea Lion to take Britain. With power in numbers he planned to take out their airforce then land a large contigent of soldiers on their shores. He bagen with bombing the airfields and factories. Soon after he moved to the cities. However Britain still had some tricks up their sleeves. One was the invention of the radar which gave their pilots a great advantage and the Enigma which was a German code machine. With these they turned the tide and Hitler moved on. -
Lend-Lease Act
At this poin the US is kind of in the war and kind of not. By passing the Lend-Lease Act we have decided to keep our neutrality, but sell arms to our friends. This eventualy escalates to us escorting British ships. Soon the inevitable happened and one of our ships was attacked by a German U-boat. However we where still not fully in the war. -
Pearl Harbor (Axis Victory)
Japan had decided it wanted in on this war and that it was to be a surprise. They planned their surprise attack to hit multiple targets. They hit Pearl Harbor knocking out most of the Pacific fleet, which they saw as a dagger to their throat, and causing many casualties. In addition they also attakce several spots in southeast Asia. Playing it dirty and coming into the war as a surprise and by their targets they made it pretty clear where they stood with the Axis powers. -
Bataan Death March (Axis Victory)
The Bataan Death March was one of the horrific events of WWII. US troops were positioned on the Bataan penisual. There were very few left so they had decided to hold out for the coming reinforcement. However due to Pearl Harbor they never came. One April 3rd came Japans final attack. The US troop held out until the 9th till there was no chance. They surrendered. They were marched to disease ridden concentration camps given little food and water on the way. -
Bataan Continued
Many died on the way to the camps, many more died in the camps, and after that most were worked to death in the coal mine along with suffering the other brutalities of the camp. -
Battle of Midway (Allies Victory)
The Battle of Midway was originaly planned by the Japanese to draw out the US pacific fleet so that they could overwhelm them and crush them. However do to changes made by higher ups that took many of the ships away from the conflict, poor and unconfirmed intel and the fact that the US had Magic, a machine which could intercept and decode Japanese code it was a major loss for the japanese. -
Battle of Stalingrad (Soviet Union Victory)
Once again Russia was saved by it's extremely harsh winters. As the battle began the Luftwaffe, German airforce, went on nightly bombing raids. This blew apart most of the city. In early November Germans controlled 90 percent of the city. On the 19 Soviet troops outside the city pulled a switch-a-roo and had the Germans trapped and cut off in the city. On Feb. 2 90,000 freezing starving Germans of the original 330,000 surrendered. From there the Germans were on the defensive and being pushed bak -
El Alamein (Allied Victory
The battle of El Alamein took place in Egypt between the US and Germany. The Germans were in a tight spot. They had good defenses set up but they had little fuel left and Hitler would not order a retreat. After bombarding them with artillery the US troops made a quick attck and cleared some of the mines their camp was fortified with. After that the finishing blow was dealt by infantry and an entire armored division. The Germans had no chance. The battle ended November 4. -
D-Day (Allied Victory)
The D-Day forces consisted of 3.5 million troops of the combined armies of the Allies. On June 6th they landed on 5 sections of the beaches along Normandy's coast. Although the lands were very bloody and routing the entrenched Germans took a heavy toll on their numbers, the Allied forces were able to take and hold the beachheads. From there the Allies had a base of operations to conduct further attacks in Europe. By September France, Belgium, Luxembourg and most of Netherlands had been liberated -
Battle of Leyte Gulf (Allied Victory)
The Japanese had decided to gamble it all to keep the American fleet seperated from the soldiers who'd landed on the Philippines. Within three days the Japanese was almost completely destroyed.
Their only defense now was their fearless army and kamakaze bombers. The kamakazes were suicide piolits who flew their planes into American ships in hope of sinking them. After many ships recieved reinforced decks this wasnt very effective. -
Yalta Conference
Although the war was not yet over the US, Britain, and Soviet Union had decided to meet in Yalta to decide a postwar plan. They were to split Germany into zones each occupied by a respective Allied force, the Soviet Union would allow the Eastern Europeans to have free elections as well as help out in the war. It was their hopes that the world would not disolve into a third world war quickly after this conference. -
Iwo Jima (Allies Victory)
Iwo Jima was a small island near Japan which held two landing strips that provided a high tactical advantage to whichever side occupied them. To take the island the US spent a few days to heavily bomb the island. However they only succeeded in making their beach crossing harder and providing hiding spots for the enemy snipers. It was a long and bloody battle. The Japanese fought fiercly, taking advantage of every defense they had and not even spairring a though for surrender. It ended March 26. -
Japan Is Forewarned
On this date the first nuclear bomb was tested. Being successful President Truman sent a threat to Japan telling them that unless they surrendered then they could expect a "rain of ruin from the air". The Japanese did not reply most likely thinking to call the US's bluff. -
Atomic Armageddon (6th - 9th)
During the span of this time the US dropped two atomic bombs. One on Hiroshima on the 6th and one three days later on Nagasaki. The effects were colosal. Together around 101,500 people died just from the initial blast, many more from radiation and other effects cause by the bombs. There were many factors that played into the dropping of the atomic bombs, just and unjust. Some of them included to save our troops lives due to the Japanese tactics and also to emerge from the war on top. -
End Of the War
After seeing the destruction of the atomic bombs and now knowing the US's threat to be real and still looming for the possiblility of another attack the Japanese surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur abourd the Missours battleship in Tokyo Bay.
