The End of WW2

Do Now: Take out your task packet for stamps

Take out a piece of paper and something to write with
(Note book is fine)
Timeline Directions
• Using the powerpoint packets
around the room, create a
descriptive timeline of the following
16 events. They ARE in order, you
just need to design your timeline,
add dates and describe each.
1) Pearl Harbor
2) Midway
3) Stalingrad
4) Allies invade Sicily, Mussolini
removed from power
5) Italy signs Armistice, some parts
fight for Germany, Mussolini
escapes
6) D-Day
7) Battle of the Bulge
8) Iwo Jima (Island Hopping)
9) Mussolini is executed
10) Firebombing of Tokyo
11) Okinawa
12) Berlin is surrounded by the
Russians, Hitler commits suicide
13) V-E day
14) First atomic bomb test
15) Atomic bomb dropped on
Hiroshima, then Nagasaki
16) V-J Day
The Americans turn the tide
• After Pearl Harbor, the arrival of American troops on all fronts of the
war turned the tide against the Axis powers.
• In Europe, Americans helped lead the charge on D-Day, liberating
France from German control and slowly retaking land against a
retreating Germany.
• In the Pacific, Americans finally countered the Japanese at Midway
and began to force them back to their own islands.
European Turning Points
• D-Day – Allied troops take the French Coast in a surprise assault using
landing craft and massive numbers of troops
• Stalingrad – Soviets defeat the German army in Russia, ending the
German push into the Soviet Union and humiliating Hitler (- why not
to invade Russia in Winter part 3)
• The Battle of the Bulge – Dec 16, 1944 – Jan 25, 1945
• With a ferocious effort, German forces manage to push the allied lines back
and cause significant casualties (particularly for Americans), but ultimately
lose the battle anyway.
• By mid-1945, the Allied army has surrounded Berlin and the Germans
are on their last legs.
The End of Mussolini
• In July of 1943, the Allies invaded the Italian island of
Sicily and bombarded Rome.
• Italians did not like this
• Very quickly after that, the government strips
Mussolini of his powers, he is removed from office
and imprisoned.
• The new Italian government began negotiating with
the Allies (in secret) about switching sides. They
signed an Armistice, but the Germans occupied Italy.
• Allied armies advanced through Italy against the
Germans.
• The Germans eventually rescue Mussolini from
imprisonment, he set up another Italian state in the
north. Italians now fought Italians (some with
Mussolini/the Germans and some with the Allies)
• Final Victory came in 1945, as the Germans were also
near surrender
• Mussolini was executed by the Italian resistance and
hung from the roof of a gas station in Milan in 1945.
 The End of Hitler
• During the battle of Berlin, with the
Allies and Soviets closing in on all
sides, Hitler married his long-time
mistress Eva Braun.
• The following day (April 30th, 1945),
Hitler committed suicide by shooting
himself in the head while
simultaneously biting in to a cyanide
capsule. Eva Braun also committed
suicide by taking a cyanide capsule.
V-E Day
• On May 7, 1945, General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional
surrender of the Third Reich from the German military. On May 9th, V-
E Day (Victory in Europe) was celebrated. After nearly 6 years of
fighting, the war in Europe had ended.
Pacific Turning Points
• Pearl Harbor – Attack by the Japanese on an American base forces
Americans to begin fighting in the War (Dec. 7 1941)
• Midway – Americans decode Japanese plans to attack Midway and
intercept the Japanese planes. From this point forward, the
Americans begin pushing the Japanese back (June 1942)
• Iwo Jima – feb-march 1945
• Okinawa – April 1 1945
• Firebombing of Tokyo- March 1945
The War in the Pacific
• After Midway, the United States Navy was beginning to get the upper
hand in the war against the Japanese.
• The honor of the Japanese military culture would not allow the
soldiers to surrender, so Japan would have to be fought all the way
back to their home islands.
• The US military came up with a strategy known as island hopping.
This called for US Marines and other land based forces to attack
poorly defended Japanese bases that were still of strategic use.
Eventually, a chain of these islands would lead right to Japan itself.
Attacking the mainland of Japan
• The island hopping campaign ended with the bloody battles of Iwo
Jima and Okinawa. From these islands the Allies would be able to
launch bombing runs at Japan, whose air force and navy were in
tatters.
• Japanese resistance to American attacks soon convinced the military
that an invasion of Japan might cost somewhere in the neighborhood
of 1,000,000 American lives.
• Firebombing of Japanese cities began, but the Japanese would still
not surrender.
 • Albert Einstein wrote a letter to
President Roosevelt expressing
The Manhattan Project concern that German scientists were
perhaps capable of building an
atomic bomb sometime during the
1940’s.
• Not wanting Hitler to get the bomb
first, FDR immediately ordered the
top secret Manhattan Project to
begin work on the research and
development of an atomic weapon.
• The Germans gave up on their bomb
program very early, since Hitler felt
that other projects were more
important. America however, tested
its first nuclear weapon Trinity at
Alamogordo, New Mexico in July
1945.
• By the time the first bomb was
tested, FDR had died, and Germany
had surrendered.
Dropping the Atomic Bomb
• The new President, Harry Truman,
ordered a nuclear bomb to be dropped
on the city of Hiroshima on August 6,
1945.
• 80,000 people were either immediately
killed or soon died due to the immense
doses of radiation they endured.
• Hiroshima had been a major industrial
production center, and in under a
minute it had ceased to exist. Still, the
military government of Japan refused
to surrender.
• Three days later, the last bomb in our
arsenal was dropped on Nagasaki (due
to bad weather over Nagoya, the
original target.)
 V-J Day
• On September 2, 1945 the
Empire of Japan officially
surrendered to General
Douglas MacArthur on board
the USS Missouri.
• World War Two in the Pacific
was finally over, V-J Day had
come.