While all of this is happening, Winston Churchill was redeemed as a hero because before the war he had tried telling people that they needed to take Hitler out of business. Churchill was appointed Prime Minister of Great Britain and is known as one of the greatest British generals in history.
The Vichy government was formed from the city of Vichy in France. The Vichy government was the government that Hitler allowed to assume control after he had defeated France. The Free French Underground (FFU) was led by Charles de Gaulle. The FFU was based in Great Britain and was operated to fight off the German oppression and to free France. De Gaulle later became the leader of France and became a very famous leader.
Nazi goals to get Great Britain:
1. Destroy the Royal Air Force before the invasion.
2. Attack and destroy the British Navy.
3. Attack British troops.
The Germans never succeeded in destroying Royal Air Force. German bombers did so poorly against the RAF that they had to stop bombing during the day and only bomb at night. Great Britain was aided by radar and Ultra.
Ultra was a heavily classified operation until about the 1970’s Ultra was the code name for a code system that Great Britain was able to use to intercept and decode German diplomatic and military messages. The British used this to find out exactly where and when the Germans would attack and the British could attack and prevent attack before the strikes took place.
British was the focal point for the war after France fell to Germany. Who knows where we would be today if Great Britain had lost? You have to hand it to those Brits, they knew what they were doing.
Italy had a fascist government. Fascism is a when a dictator comes to power. The dictator preaches nationalism and imperialism. They are very militaristic and focus on much of the greater good for that country. In this case, that country is Italy.
Italy’s dictator was Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was very imperialistic and sought to take over colonies in Africa and in other parts of Europe. Italy’s allies were Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Eventually they capitulated. This means that they surrendered and joined the Allied powers.
Mussolini was elected into power. He was elected to fight the ever growing communist movement. The King elected Mussolini and appointed him as Prime Minister because he felt that Mussolini was strong and could fight off the growing threat. Eventually, Mussolini gained enough power to make himself dictator.
Under Mussolini, the country of Italy became stronger. Mussolini brought renewed order and respect back to the country. He increased efficiency for industry, trains, and manufacturing. He built up the military but was unable to get it up to great strength as opposed to Hitler’s great army.
Mussolini was overthrown; he was hung, and then his body was drug around the streets of Italy. After Mussolini’s death, Italy surrendered. During the war, Italy fought in the USSR, France, North Africa, Greece, Germany, and many other countries.
Cities in Italy were ravaged. Italy was the site where the US and British troops focused most of their initial attention. We focused on Italy to overtake Italy. The government quickly surrendered and turned to the Allies. However, it took another three years for the country as a whole to be freed. The Germans had many troops down in Italy who defended the territory despite the government change.
The Soviet Union signed a treaty with Germany which gave a lot of land to Germany. The Soviet Union had dropped out of WW1 to fight the Bolshevik Revolution. This was fighting between the communists and the non communist government within the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin was a big believer in Karl Marx’s theory of Communism.
The Theory of Communism is that the government would be overthrown and that the poor would rise up and there would be a classless society where everyone is equal and can do anything that they want. This was supposed to be a beautiful utopian society. It didn’t quite work out that way.
The Weimar Republic was Germany’s first attempt at a Democracy for a government. The Weimar Republic was not a popular and strong government and it was formed during World War 1 and they accepted the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler used people’s dislike for the Republic to gain power and to overthrow the government.
The Ardense offense was a German offnsive attack in the Ardense Mountains. This is mor famously known as the Battle of the Bulge. This was the deadliest battle in which over 19,000 U.S. troops lost their lives. The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler's last major military offensive strike to try and beat the Allies.
-Pacific Front- The pacific Front was very difficult indeed. We began to try and take back the Pacific after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and taken control of the Philippines. The Japanese took the Philippians on death marches. When the US came to take the Island back, the Japanese told the people that the Americans were going to kill them all. The civilians turned on the American forces.
The Battle of Midway was one of the most decisive victories for the United States in the Pacific campaign. The Japanese military was going to try and lure the last of the US aircraft carriers into a trap. The Japanese greatly underestimated the US. Code breakers for the US successfully discovered the exact location and date of the attack and were able to launch a counter ambush.
The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers to our one. The Japanese Imperial Military was effectively crippled because they could not keep up with the losses of their chips. They could not build them fast enough while the US was quickly replenishing it’s fleets.
Battles at places like Iwo Jima were especially difficult. We were basically trying to retake the Pacific an island at a time. Thousands of US and Japanese troops died at Iwo Jima. The Japanese had Kamikazes which were Japanese pilots who would intentionally fly their planes into ships to wreck as much damage as possible, killing themselves in the process. After we used the atomic bombs on Japan, they Japanese knew that they had no chance of prevailing.
3. Students will understand how/why the Allies won WWII. The allies won for a variety of reasons. Britain refused to give up in Europe no matter what. Great Britain could not be taken over by the Germans because they had a far superior navy to Germany’s. Great Britain also had the British Royal Air Force which was superior to Germany’s and could crush any amphibious invasions.
The Germans bombed Great Britain every night which only strengthened GB’s resolve. The Allies also had Ultra which was a top secret technology that could break any code that the Germans would use. We used Ultra to find out dates and locations of Axis attacks, battle plans, and troop locations. We also knew that the Axis was trying to break our codes so we often gave them false information.
The United States entered the War fresh and in full ability to supply troops, ships, planes, and everything else for war. The US home front rationed food and basically everything else so that the troops would be well supplied. Germany was also fighting a two sided war between us and the Soviet Union who had driven back the Germans during the winter months.
The United States had Navajo Code Talkers. The Native American troops would relay secret information and whatnot using their unprinted and nearly dead language which nobody but a Navajo code talker could decipher. We also had the Atomic bomb which pretty much sealed the deal in the Pacific front.
The spying game: Spying is better known as espionage. Spying is the act of gathering information secretly about and from your enemy. Reinhard Gehlen was Hitler's master spy who basically waltzed into America for information without the authorities being any the wiser. Takeo Yoshikawa was a Japanese spy who lived on the naval base Pearl Harbor and gathered crucial information and tactical data for the Japanese military to attack Pearl Harbor.
After WW2 was over, Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's top advisor and spy defected to the United States. He turned over all information that Germany had about the Soviet Union. He gave enough information to help start a new organization known as the CIA.
Morris Cohen was an American that gave secret information to the Soviets about the Manhattan project. This project was the operation that created the atomic bomb. Morris was an active communist and lived in Russia aftr WW2.
Multilingual people were great candidates for spying. They were used to interrogate POW's. Any spy that was captured was tortured for information and usually killed. Internment camps were camps that were established in the United States where Japanese people were kept. The govrnment had feared that the Japanese Americans wre giving information to the Japanese military.
4. Students will understand the causes, effects and major events of the Cold War.
a. Define the Cold War and it's causes- The cold war was more a strategic and political war between communist russia and
non-communist America.The main cause is that after WWII Germany was
split into four parts. The US, UK, France, and USSR had control of one
part each. There was a lot of arguing over the splitting of Germany
which led to the Cold War. Another cause is that Russia was mad that we
didn't tell them about our nuclear weapon program. so after the war
they made their own atomic bomb. It was a fight between Socialism, government control, and Capitalism, individuality. Democracy vs. communism.
b. Policy of Containment -domino effect, mutual deterrence, massive retaliation, Truman Doctine, Marshall Plan, NATO-Policy of Containment- This was what the US used to stop the spread of communism in within the US and European countries. George Keenan is the founder of this policy. The policy helped foreign security build up and prevented the domino effect.
The domino effect was the communist theory that if they took over one country and then another and another then eventually it would spread until the whole world became communist. The Truman Doctrine gave military aid to Greece and Turkey because we feared and they feared that communism was spreading there. NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was an organization devoted to stopping the spread of communism.
c. Both Berlin Crises- The Berlin blockade took occurred between June 28 1948 and may 12 1949. While Germany was split into four parts, Berlin, the capital, was also split into four parts by those four countries. But Berlin was in the Russian part of Germany and Stalin blockaded it so that he would have complete control of the city. This left 2.5 people without any supplies. The United States and British and French forces airlifted supplies over the wall and into Berlin.
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