The History of WWII

By, Chris Leonhardt

Key People
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Was president during WW11. Asked for declaration of war after the attack at Pearl Harbor. Made us apart of the Allied Powers along with Churchill and Stalin. Congress passed the First and Second War Powers Acts and other laws to give him full authority. He had control over farming, manufacturing, labor, prices, wages, transportation, and allotment of raw materials.

Benito Mussolini: In May 1938, Mussolini told Hitler he would fight alongside him in any way against the democracies of the world. His army was quickly defeated by the Allied Powers. Italian resistance to his dictatorship led to his loss of power; Mussolini was overthrown in 1943, and in April 1945, Italian revolters captured Mussolini, murdered him, and mutilated his body.

Emperor Hirohito: Emperor Hirohito was the emperor of Japan during WW11. Due to political purposes the Allied Forces kept Hirohito as emperor. He was a very harsh and cruel leader.

Adolf Hitler: Adolf Hitler was the Dictatorial leader of the Nazi Party, commanding German forces throughout WW11. Hitlers efforts to become a larger nation for the German people ended with a World War and a Holocaust. He help power in Germany until his suicide just before Germanys surrender in 1945.

Joseph Stalin: Joseph Stalin was the leader of the USSR during WW11. Stalin promised his help in the war against Japan once Germany had been defeated. He is part of the reason for the U.S. to drop the bomb on Japan.

Neville Chamberlain: Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister of Great Britan during WW11. He declared war on Germany on September 3rd 1939. This turned what would otherwise have been a little war into a much bigger one. He resigned quickly after this decisin.

General Tojo Hideki: Tojo Hideki was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, the leader of the Taisei Yokusankai, and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan during most of WW11.

George C. Marshall: George C. Marshall was noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II. Marshall served as the United States Army Chief of Staff during the war and the chief military adviser to President who at this time was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Dwight Eisenhower commanded the D-Day invasion while serving as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during WW11. He led U.S. troops to defeat the Axis forces in Northern Africa. He also prepared the U.S. military forces in England for the D-Day invasion.

Winston Churchill: Winston Churchill was prime minister of Britain during WW11. He declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland because he had promised Poland they would come to their side should Poland be invaded.

Harry S. Truman: Harry Truman served as president of the United States and Commander in Chief of the U.S. military during the final months of WW11. Under his command, the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, effectively ending the war. This was the first use of atomic bombs in warfare.

Douglas McArthur: Douglas MacArthur was put in charge of the Philippines. He was supposed to defend them from Japanese attack. He failed at this. This gave him determination to make us for his fail. So he decided on what is known as island hopping. This meant that Americans took over the larger more important islands captured by the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean. The islands included Two Jima and Ohinawa.

J. Robert Oppenheimer: Oppenheimer was the lead scientist in the Atomic Bomb Program. He is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his main role in the Manhattan Project, the project that made the first nuclear weapons in WW11.

George S. Patton: In WW11, Patton commanded corps and armies in North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations. In 1944, he took command of the U.S. Third Army, which under his leadership advanced farther, captured more enemy prisoners, and liberated more territory in less time than any other army in history thanks to Patton.

Bernard Montgomery: Bernard L. Montgomery is known as one of the best senior British commanders in WW11. He commanded the 8th Army in North Africa where he won the Battle of El Alamein in October-November 1942. Later he became the Allied Commander of Ground Forces on D-Day and in the Battle of Normandy but was then replaced. His key failure was Operation Market Garden.

Erwin Rommel: Erwin Rommel was the commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. It was his leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign that established the legend of the Desert Fox. He was considered to be one of the best at Desert warfare. He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion in Normandy. Later on towards the end of the war, Rommel was linked to the conspiracy to kill Adolf Hitler. Because Rommel was widely renowned, Hitler chose to eliminate him quietly. In trade for assurances his family would be spared, Rommel agreed to commit suicide.

WW11 Specifics
Axis Powers: Axis Powers were made up of Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Allied Powers: Allied Powers were made up of the U.S., England, France, and the Soviet Union.

Fascism: Fascism was the governing ideology of Germany and Italy. It was fascist thinking that led both countries to believe that they were right to start the war and that they could win it. A central tenet of Fascism was that they were superior to all other peoples.

Nazi Party : Founded in 1919 as the German Workers' Party, it changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party when Adolf Hitler became leader. The nickname Nazi was taken from the first word of its full name, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. The party grew from its home base in Bavaria and attracted members from disaffected elements throughout Germany.

Blitzkreig: Lightning War

Kamikazi: A Japanese pilot trained in World War II to make a suicidal crash attack, especially upon a ship.

Pearl Harbor:
An inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the southern coast of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It became the site of a naval base after the United States annexed Hawaii in 1900. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the base, and the United States entered World War II the following day.

Doolittle Raid:
The Doolittle Raid, on 18 April 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese Home Islands during World War II.

Marshall Plan:
U.S. sponsored program to provide economic aid to European countries after World War II. It provided almost $13 billion in grants and loans to 17 countries

Mahattan Project:
A United States project lasting from August 1942 to August 1946, which developed the atomic energy program, with special reference to the atomic bomb.

Rosie the Riveter: The most successful advertisement that promoted women to join the workforce during World War II.

V-E day: Victory in Europe Day! This took place on May 8, 1945.

V-J Day: Victory in Japan Day! This took place on August 15, 1945.

United Nations: It was founded in 1945 and promoted peace, security, and economic development.

Battle of Britain: During April of 1941, a series of intense raids directed against Britain by the German air force in World War II.

Battle of the Atlantic: This battle lasted from September 1939 until the defeat of Germany in 1945. It was the wars longest continuous military campaign. This battle to control the trading over the Atlantic involved thousands of ships and went across thousands of square miles.

Battle of the Coral Sea: The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought from May 4-8, 1942. It was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. The battle was the first ever fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, and was also the first in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other.

Battle of Midway: After recovering Japanese naval codes, the US found an opportunity to fight back after getting hammered at Pearl Harbor. They attacked the Japanese on June 3rd with 115 land based aircraft and 3 aircraft carriers. This was a huge victory for the US.

Battle of Leningrad: The siege started on September 8th, 1941, when the last land connection to the Saint Petersburg was severed. Although the Soviets managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, lifting of the siege didnt take place until January 27th, 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history and overwhelmingly the most costly in terms of casualties.

Battle of Stalingrad: This was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. August 23rd, 1942 and February 2nd 1943. It was the largest battle on the Eastern Front. It was marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties. It was fault with reckless abandon. It is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, nearly 2 million casualties.

Operation Torch: This was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on November 8th, 1942. It was supposed to clear Axis Powers from North Africa, improve naval control of the Mediterranean Sea and prepare for an invasion of Southern Europe in 1943.

Battle of Al Alamein: The Battle of El Alamein was primarily fought between two great commanders of World War Two, Montgomery and Rommel. The Allied victory at El Alamein leads to the retreat of the Africa Corps and the German surrender in North Africa in May 1943.

D-DAY: Operation Overlord was the phase in the Western front of WWII that was fought in 1944 between German forces and the invading Allied forces. The campaign began with D-Day, among the largest amphibious assaults ever conducted when nearly three million troops crossed the English Channel and ended on August 25, 1944, ended with the liberation of Paris.

Bataan Death March: The Bataan Death March was a war crime involving the transfer of POWs over a walk of 60 miles, with wide-ranging abuse and high fatalities just for moving out of line or lack of food or water, by Japanese forces in the Philippines, in 1942.

Battle of the Guadalcanal: The American invasion of Guadalcanal occurred on August 7, 1942. It was the first American offensive operation of World War II. They captured the airfield and, after six months of some of the most ferocious battles of the Pacific War, pushed the Japanese off the island.

Battle of the Bulge: This was the last major push by the Germans in December of 1944. It was a complete surprise initially but was an utter failure in its proposed goals. The waste of the cream of the German armed forces was a huge bonus to the allies. Not only were men and equipment wasted, but scarce fuel was used up or destroyed as well leaving no hope.

Battle of Iwo Jima: By capturing Iwo Jima the Allied forces were able to create an emergency air strip for damaged B-29's. They could also conduct more air attacks helping them win WW2.

Battle of Okinawa: Okinawa was a brutal battle between the United States and Japan. It was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of WWII. The battle lasted 82 in 1945. The main objective of the operation was to seize a large island only 340 miles away from mainland Japan. As the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa as a base for air operations during the Allied invasion, which never took place. Shortly after this Japan was forced to surrender.

Hiroshima: Hiroshima is the site where the first nuclear weapon was used. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The atomic bomb was completely destroying and devastating.

Nagasaki: A city in Japan where an atomic bomb was dropped shortly after Hiroshima. It completely wiped out the city. 60,00080,000 people died at Nagasaki.

These are events and key people from WWII. Hope you enjoyed and learned a little!

By, Chris Leonhardt