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Japan Invades China
Link For many years Japan and China had already have many skirmishes. But in 1937, Japan got aid from Hitler and made an alliance. This then lead to Japan succuessfully invading China, including Britain, French, and Dutch colonies. About 20 million people died during this mini war between Japan and China. The impact is that it was one of the first major battles that happened and that it gave Japan the confiedence to gain more power and start attacking other places like Pearl Harbor. -
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Timespan of World War II
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BLITZKRIEG
Link Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of short battles to quickly end the war. Germany quickly invaded much of Europe by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war). Germany first used this method in 1939 while invading Poland. Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of weapons such as tanks, planes, and artillery along a narrow front. The effect was that Germany maganged to invade many European countries in a very short time. -
The Fall of Paris
Link On June 5, Germany went southwards and crushed France's resistance. Then on June 10, Italy takes the oppurtunity to come in to France from the south. Then four days after that with the combined forces of Gemrany attacking from the north and Italy attacking from the south, the capital of France, Paris, fell. This had a large impact on the war because it left Britain utterly alone with its next door neighbor having been taken down. -
Pearl Harbor
Link At 7 a.m. on December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes commenced a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base Pearl Harbor which is located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The attack was more than successful, destroying over 20 naval vessels and over 300 airplanes. More than 2000 U.S. soldiers died and a 1000 more were wounded. The day after the attack, president Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared war on Japan and officially entered world war 2. -
Bataan Death March
Link On April 9, 1942, the U.S. surrendered, at the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, to the Japanese. The 75,000 Filipino and American troops were forced to march 65 miles to prision camps. The soldiers made the trip in imense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished on the march so it became known as the Bataan Death March. The U.S. did get revenge though by taking back a different island in the Philippines and executing the general of the death march. -
Battle of Midway cont.
Link This allowed the U.S. Admiral to set up a web of decoys and commence their own surprise attack. The main US attack, which began at 10:26 on June 4, took the Japanese by surprise and succeeded in destroying four aircraft carriers in a matter of hours. The U.S. navy inflicted a lot of damage on the Japanese navy that could not be fixed and damaged the whole Japanese armed forces. The impact was that Japan's armed forces were weakened incredibly and the U.S. gained superiority in the Pacific. -
Battle of Midway
Link Admiral Yamamoto wanted to force a battle in the Pacific before US had their power fully restored. Since the Japanese controlled the Midway, Yamamoto hoped to set a trap on the U.S. navy and end the war with America. However the plan failed thanks to the Japanese underestemating the U.S. naval fleet and the Americans intercepting a Japanese transmission which had the exact date and location of the attack. -
Allied invasion of Italy
Link The British army, led by Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, begins the Allied invasion of Italy, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender. The impact was that the Allies managed to take out one of the Axis powers and were able to use Italy to take down many German forces. -
D-Day
Link On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline, to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies gained a foot-hold in Europe. The cost in lives on D-Day was high. More than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 Soldiers to begin the opperation to take down Hitler. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps cont.
Link In the following months the Soviet Union, British, and the U.S. all started going across Europe liberating the camps. Liberators saw unspeakable conditions in the Nazi camps, where piles of corpses laid unburied. The small percentage of inmates who survived looked like skeletons because of the forced labor and the lack of food. Survivors faced a long and difficult road to recovery. The effect was that the world saw just how bad the Nazis were. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
Link While the Allied forces went across Europe, they faced thousands of concentration camp prisioners who were suffering immensly. The Soviets realized that these were death camps and tried to save the remaining people. The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest death camp, in January 1945. There was a lot of evidence of mass murder in Auschwitz. They discovered thousands of men's suits, more than 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 14,000 pounds of human hair. -
VE Day
Link May 8 will forever spell the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms. The German surrender was the final cease-fire. Germany tried to make a last stand against the Soviet Union but fail and were taken prisioner. In the meantime, 13,000 British POWs were freed and returned to Britain. Both Britain and the U.S. celebrate Victory in Europe Day (VE Day). Cities in both nations, as well as formerly invaded cities in Europe, put out flags, rejoicing in the end of the war. -
Dropping of Atomic Bomb
Link On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion destroyed 90% of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more would later die of radiation. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an about 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II. The impact was the complete surrender of Japan, taking them out of the war. -
Battle of the Bulge
Link On December 16, three German armies launched the deadliest and most desperate battle of the war in the heavily forested Ardennes. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. U.S. forces tore through the attack and had their highest casualties for any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces and Germany was largely unable to replace those forces. The impact- Germany's surrender and the end of the war.
