Professional Documents
Culture Documents
WWII PPT - Military
WWII PPT - Military
1939 - 1945
Fascism
Fascist dictators
began to take over in
parts of Europe in
the 1920s and
1930s due to bad
economic conditions
created by WWI and
the Great
Depression.
Italy
Germany
Pearl Harbor
Japanese negotiators agreed to meet with US
diplomats.
While they met, the Japanese decided to sent
a fleet to Pearl Harbor to destroy the US
Pacific fleet.
Dec. 7, 1941: Japanese forces attacked
Pearl Harbor killing 2,400, wounding 1,200,
and destroying 300 Am. Planes, 18 warships,
and 8 of the 9 US battleships.
WAR
Casablanca Conference
January 1943: FDR and Churchill met
in Casablanca, Morocco.
They agreed to win the war in Europe
before concentrating on the Pacific.
They agreed to demand only an
unconditional surrender from all of the
Axis powers.
War in Italy
Sept. 1943: Italy surrendered to the
allies, and many Italians began to fight
against Mussolini and Hitler.
Sept. 1943 - Jan. 1944: US forces are
stalled by Hitlers troops .
Finally in January, the US landed forces
behind the German lines at Anzio, just
South of Rome.
Map of the
1942
German
Invasion of
the USSR
A Turning Point
Jan. 31, 1943: 90,000 surviving
German soldiers surrendered to the
Soviet army in Stalingrad.
This was the turning point of the war in
the east: after this the USSR never lost
another battle, and the Germans did not
launch any more offensives in the east.
War in W. Europe
The US began to bomb Germany in 1942
using carpet bombing tactics.
In 1943, the amount of bombs dropped in
Germany doubled.
By 1944, the US was bombing Germany
24 hours a day.
The bombing of Dresden was one of the
most famous campaigns of the air war.
D-Day
June 6, 1944: Allied troops
commanded by Eisenhower landed on
the beaches of Normandy and began
the invasion of W. Europe and the
liberation of France.
Despite brutal German resistance, 2
million allied soldiers occupied France
by July.
American forces
continued to defeat
the Germans and
freed Paris by
August, 1944. In
Sept., Belgium and
Holland were freed
from Nazi control.
German Surrender
The Americans continued to bomb
Germany and attack from the Western
front, while the Soviets continued their
attacks on Germany from the East.
May 8, 1945: V-E Day: Germany
surrendered.
May
8,
1945:
V-E
Day
Yalta Conference
All agreed to split Germany into 4 zones
of occupation and to also split the capital
city, Berlin.
Stalin promised to allow free elections in
the nations his army liberated from
Germany.
Stalin agreed to enter the war against
Japan soon after the German surrender.
The Philippines
By March, 1942, FDR ordered General
MacArthur to escape to Australia. He
left with the words: I shall return.
On May 6, 1942, 11,000 Americans and
Filipinos surrendered. When the
Bataan Peninsula fell, approx. 76,000
Filipinos and Americans became
prisoners of war.
Bataan
The Japanese
general responsible
for organizing the
march was one of 6
Japanese executed
for war crimes after
the war.
Japanese Expansion
Japanese forces continued to expand
and were not stopped by allied forces
until the Battle of the Coral Sea in May,
1942.
This battle fought entirely with planes
from aircraft carriers. Enemy ships
never came within sight of one another.
Battle of Guadalcanal
1st US offensive of the Pacific war.
August 1942: 11,000 US Marines landed
at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands
and about 2,200 Japanese fled into the
jungle. They fought there for 3 months.
Feb. 1943: Japan abandoned
Guadalcanal.
Island-Hopping
From February 1943 on, the US forces
began to selectively attack enemy-held
islands in the Pacific.
The Japanese fiercely defended their
positions and both sides suffered heavy
casualties.
American Offensives
The US first captured the rest of the
Solomon islands and then the Gilbert
islands.
After seizing the island of Tarawa in the
Gilbert islands, it was used by US
Admiral Nimitz to launch bombing raids
on Japanese bases in the Marshall
islands.
More US Offensives
By Feb. 1944, the US had crippled
Japanese air power and seized the
Marshall islands.
By June, 1944, the US captured parts of
the Mariana Islands.
The Mariana Islands were important
because they enabled US planes to
bomb Japanese cities.
The Philippines
Mid-October 1944: US forces invaded the
Philippine island of Leyte. Although the US quickly
captured the island, a huge naval battle ensued.
The Japanese used kamikaze pilots for the 1st
time in this battle.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest in Naval
history, engaging more than 280 warships. As a
result of the battle, the Japanese navy was virtually
destroyed.
Japanese Kamikazes
Japanese kamikazes were suicide
pilots who crashed their planes which
were heavily loaded with bombs into
allied ships.
During the war, the US experienced
about 4,900 kamikaze attacks which
destroyed 57 American ships and
damaged about 650 others.
A
Kamikaze
Pilot
The Philippines
After securing Leyte, the US invaded
Luzon in an attempt to capture Manila,
the capital city of the Philippines.
In one months time, 100,000 Filipinos
died, 80,000 Japanese died, and 27,000
Americans also perished.
The US did not fully secure the
Philippines until June, 1945.
American Offensives
Iwo Jima was located about 700 miles
from Japan. Its capture was another
step toward an eventual invasion of the
Japanese home islands.
The next island to fall to the Americans
was Okinawa, which was located about
350 miles from Japan.
Battle of Okinawa
April-June 1945: In another bloody battle,
nearly 100,000 Japanese defended the island
from an allied force of 180,000 soldiers and
1,300 warships.
Japanese kamikazes launched nearly 2,000
attacks against the British and American fleets.
This was the single bloodiest battle of the
Pacific war with nearly 50,000 allied deaths
and 93,000 Japanese deaths.
Okinawa
August 6, 1945: On
President Trumans
orders, the Enola
Gay dropped an
atomic bomb on the
city of Hiroshima.
It destroyed about
90% of the city and
killed about 140,000
people.
Nagasaki
When the bombing of Hiroshima did not
elicit a surrender from the Japanese
government, a 2nd atomic bomb was
dropped on Nagasaki on August 9,
1945.
The bomb on Nagasaki was equally
destructive and led to a Japanese
surrender.
V-J Day
August 14, 1945: Japan agreed to an
unconditional surrender.
The formal surrender was signed on
September 2, 1945 on the USS
Missouri in Tokyo Bay, officially ending
WWII.
Military
Civilian
Total
France
122,000
470,000
592,000
Britain
305,800
60,600
366,400
US
405,400
405,400
USSR
11,000,000 6,700,000
17,700,000
Military
Civilian
Total
2,350,000
5,600,000
226,900
60,000
286,900
1,740,000
393,400
2,133,400
Germany 3,250,000
Italy
Japan