World War II

1. Introduction
Two important conferencesone in the 1920s and the other in the 1930stried to preserve the fragile peace that existed after
World War I. Both conferences failed to achieve that goal.

Click to read caption

From November 1921 to February 1922, representatives of the

United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, and five other
nations met in Washington, D.C. Just as the Paris Peace
Conference of 1919 hoped to bring lasting peace to Europe
after World War I, the Washington Conference hoped to do the
same for Asia. The delegates agreed on several treaties during
their weeks in Washington. In the Nine Power Treaty, the
nations pledged to respect Chinas territory and
independence. Another treaty between the United States,
Britain, France, Italy, and Japan required them to limit the size
of their navies. The United States, Britain, France, and Japan
also agreed to respect one anothers rights to the Pacific
islands and Asian territories that each possessed.
In September 1938, the prime ministers of Great Britain and
France met with Italys Benito Mussolini and German dictator
Adolf Hitler at Munich, Germany. The British and French
leaders feared that Hitlers actions were pushing Europe
toward another war. Most recently, he had demanded parts of
neighboring Czechoslovakia, which Britain and France were
pledged to defend. Instead, over Czechoslovakias objections,
the two leaders signed the Munich Pact, agreeing to Hitlers demands. Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain also
declared their desire to resolve further differences through consultation rather than war.
Cheering crowds, relieved that the threat of war had passed, welcomed Chamberlain home. Britain has achieved peace with
honor, he told them. I believe it is peace for our time. Chamberlains words were challenged by his rival Winston Churchill,
soon to be Britains next prime minister. You were given the choice between war and dishonor, Churchill declared. You chose
dishonor and you will have war.

Themes
Cultural InteractionAttitudes about the superiority or inferiority of certain racial, religious, and culture groups have provoked
tension, violence, and other conflict throughout history.
Political SystemsThe quest for world prestige and power, a need for natural resources, the desire to conquer enemies, and
the wish to unite people of the same ethnic or racial heritage under one rule have all driven nations to create empires.
Economic SystemsNations have sometimes sought to obtain the raw materials and other resources they need for industrial
growth by conquering or controlling other regions.
Human-Environment InteractionAdvances in technology have increased the destructive effects of war on people and on the
regions in which they live.

2. The Road to World War

Both Japan and Germany had a mixed history of military rule and democracy. Both also began to industrialize in the decades
before World War I. However, unlike Germany, Japan lacked raw materials for its industries. Instead, it relied on a strong military
to obtain them from other nations.
The Rise of Militarism in JapanIn the decade after World War I, Japanese aggression declined. In 1920, Japan helped form
the League of Nations. It also joined many other nations in signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a 1928 agreement that condemned
war. Civilians gained more power in Japans government, although the nations emperor continued to play a strong role. New
political parties developed and calls were made to extend the right to vote to all people.
Not all Japanese were happy with these trends. Some objected to Japans agreement to the treaty signed at the Washington
Conference, which limited Japans navy to three-fifths the size of the U.S. and British navies. Many Japanese also were
concerned about events at home, such as the rise of communism and socialism and other disruptive influences of Western
culture.
The worldwide economic depression of the 1930s further weakened Japans
democracy. Japanese leaders began to believe that expansion
through conquest would solve Japans economic problems.
This belief moved Japan toward a policy of militarism. The
military began to play a greater role in Japanese politics and
government.
Japanese militarism was combined with extreme
nationalism. Radical nationalists called for more aggressive
military action abroad to acquire territory and raw
materials. When Japans prime minister tried to stop such
plans, a group of naval officers killed him in 1932. Army troops
carried out more political assassinations in 1936. Politicians, fearing for their lives, gave up more power to the military.
Militarists Expand Japans EmpireJapan and other imperialist powers had long held spheres of influence in China. Japans
sphere of influence was in Manchuria, a region in northeastern China that was rich in natural resources. In 1931, Japans army
seized the entire region. When the League of Nations pressured Japan to return Manchuria to China, Japan refused and
withdrew from the League. Instead, Japan turned Manchuria into an industrial and military base for its expansion into Asia.
More aggression followed as Japan grew stronger and the military gained control of its government. In 1936, Japan withdrew
from the naval limitation treaty it had signed at the Washington Conference. In 1937, Japanese troops clashed with Chinese
forces outside Beijing, Chinas capital. Japanese forces quickly took Beijing and then pushed south against sometimes fierce
Chinese resistance. After capturing the city of Nanking (known today as Nanjing), Japanese soldiers went on a six-week
rampage known as the Rape of Nanking. They massacred more than 100,000 Chinese civilians and brutally raped about
200,000 Chinese women.
By 1939, Japanese forces controlled most of northern and eastern China, including its main
cities and industries. By 1941, Japan had added French Indochina to its Asian empire to go
with Formosa (now called Taiwan), Korea, large areas of China, the southern half of Sakhalin
Island, and several small Pacific islands.
Testing the League of NationsJapans aggression tested the League of Nations. The
League was intended to serve as an instrument of international law. In theory, it could impose
boycotts and other economic sanctions or use the combined military force of its members to
keep unruly nations in line. In practice, however, it was a weak organization, in part because
the United States was not a member. The League failed to respond effectively to Japans
challenge.

Throughout the 1930s, Germany and Italy also tested the Leagues will. Like Japan, Germany pulled out of the League of
Nations in 1933. At the same time, Hitler began rebuilding the German military. In 1935, he announced the formation of an air
force and the start of compulsory military service. Both actions were in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitlers violation of the
treaty boosted his popularity in Germany.
The League of Nations lodged a formal protest, but it refused to consider sanctions against Germany. The next year, Hitler
challenged France and the League by sending troops into the Rhineland, which the Treaty of Versailles had stripped from
Germany and placed under international control. This was another test of the Leagues resolve to stand up to aggression.
Meanwhile, Mussolini began his quest to build a New Roman Empire. In October 1935, the Italian army invaded the African
nation of Ethiopia. The poorly equipped Ethiopian forces could not stop the invaders. Ethiopia appealed to the League of
Nations, which voted to impose economic sanctions on the aggressor. The sanctions were mild, and few League members
seriously applied them. In May 1936, Italy officially annexed Ethiopia. Hitler heartily approved of the invasion. In October, he and
Mussolini joined in a treaty of friendship that forged an alliance, known as the RomeBerlin axis, between their
countries. Because of this alliance, Germany and Italy were called the Axis
Powers.
Britain and France Appease Hitler Encouraged by events in Italy and
Spain, and by his own successful occupation of the Rhineland, Hitler
continued his campaign of expansion. During this time, Great Britain and
France did little to stop him, choosing instead to follow a policy
of appeasement.
Hitler next set his sights on neighboring Austria, the country of his birth. At
the time, Austria had an unstable government with fascist elements. Hitler
pressured its leaders to join the German Reich, or empire. Hitler issued an
ultimatum to the Austrian chancellor: he could hand over power to the
Austrian Nazis or face an invasion. He handed over power to the Nazis. Nevertheless, Hitlers army invaded anyway, crossing
the border into Austria without opposition on March 12. The next day he proclaimed Anschluss, or political union, with
Austria. Great Britain and France remained spectators to this German expansion.
Hitler claimed that he wanted to bring all ethnically German areas in eastern Europe back into the German Reich. By signing
the Munich Pact in September 1938, he acquired the Sudetenland, a German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia. He told
Chamberlain that this would be his last territorial demand. Just six months later, however, Hitler revealed that he wanted more
than to bring all ethnic Germans into the German Reich. In March 1939, he annexed Bohemia, an ethnically Czech
region. When Britain and France failed to act, Mussolini invaded nearby Albania in April 1939. It took just a few days to conquer
this small nation across from Italy on the Adriatic Sea.
U.S. NeutralityLike Great Britain and France, the United States did little to thwart Japanese, German, and Italian
aggression. When Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, for example, the League of Nations considered an oil embargo against Italy. With
no fuel, the Italian armys offensive would have ground to a halt. The League asked the United States, a major oil supplier, if it
would join the embargo. President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused, pointing out that he had just signed the Neutrality Act of
1935.This act prevented the United States from supplying arms, ammunition, or implements of war to nations in
conflict. Because the law said nothing about oil, Roosevelt chose to not block oil shipments to Italy.
Congress passed additional neutrality acts in 1936 and 1937, all designed to keep the country out of conflicts brewing in Europe,
such as the Spanish Civil War. Americans passionately supported this isolationism. Like Europeans, they recalled the horrors
of World War I and wanted to avoid getting drawn into a new conflict.

3. The Return of War, 19391941

As Winston Churchill predicted after the Munich Conference of 1938, appeasement only made Hitler bolder. However,
Germanys takeover of Bohemia in March 1939 finally caused Great Britain and France to draw a line in the sand. Hitler had
been demanding the return of Danzig, an ethnically German city in the Polish Corridor that lay on the Baltic Sea. The Polish
Corridor, a strip of land that cut through and divided Germany, had been created by the Treaty of Versailles to give Poland a
seaport. Britain and France now warned Hitler that any aggression against Poland would result in war.
Germany Reduces the Soviet ThreatHitler already
planned to attack Poland and risk a general war in
Europe. Part of his planning for this war involved the Soviet
Union. He intended to eventually conquer the Soviet Union,
which had vast farmlands and other resources that could fulfill
Germanys quest for Lebensraum, or living space. However,
Hitler needed the Soviet Union to remain neutral if Britain and
France went to war. The geography of such a war concerned
him. The Soviet Union lay to the east of Germany. Britain and
France lay to the west. Hitler did not want to fight on two
fronts, east and west, at the same time. For that reason, Soviet
neutrality was vital.
The Nazis and Communists despised and distrusted each other. So the world was shocked whenHitler and Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin signed a nonaggression treaty in August 1939. The pact served the interests of both leaders. Hitler no longer had
to worry about going war with the Soviets before he was ready. For Stalin, the pact satisfied his desire for more power and for
secure borders. In return for Stalins pledge to not attack Germany, Hitler secretly promised him a part of Poland and a sphere of
influence in Eastern Europe.
The War BeginsWith the Soviet Union neutralized, Hitler quickly sprang into action. On September 1, 1939, Hitler announced
that Germany was annexing Danzig. As he spoke, German forces were invading Poland. Two days later, France and Britain
declared war on Germany. Hitlers attack on Poland introduced a
the Blitzkrieg, or lightning war. It consisted of swift, massive, and
attacks by waves of warplanes, tanks, and infantry. Communications

new kind of warfare

highly coordinated
by radio, a new

technology perfected in the 1920s, allowed such attacks to be

coordinated and carried out. German warplanes launched attacks
on railroads, airfields, communications networks, military bases,
and other strategic sites. Meanwhile, infantry, supported by tanks and
artillery, pushed toward key cities and other objectives. As German
planes rained bombs and bullets on the enemy, motorized infantry
units quickly swept toward and around them. Then the foot soldiers
moved in to finish the job.
Faced with such overwhelming force, the Polish army quickly
collapsed. Two weeks after the Blitzkrieg began, Soviet troops invaded

from

the east. By early October, all of Poland was under German or Soviet control.
Hitler then switched his focus to the west. He moved 2 million soldiers

to

Germanys border with France and the Low CountriesBelgium, the

Netherlands, and Luxembourg. France relied for its main defense on
Maginot Line, a string of heavily armed fortresses along the
German border. Most French troops massed here, while others

the

gathered along the border with Belgium. British forces crossed the English Channel, prepared to aid France and the Low
Countries. For the next few months, not much happened. Newspapers began referring to this as the Phony War.
Suddenly, in a series of lightning actions, Hitler struck. In April 1940, German forces launched surprise attacks on Denmark and
Norway. Within a few weeks, they had conquered these two Scandinavian countries. Then on May 10, the Germans invaded the
Low Countries. In 18 days, those three nations were in German hands.
Using Blitzkrieg tactics, a German army burst through Luxembourg and southern Belgium into France in just four days. Then it
began a dramatic drive toward the French coast. Skirting the Maginot Line, the Germans sped westward. Hundreds of
thousands of French and British troops found themselves trapped in a shrinking pocket of French countryside. They retreated
toward the port of Dunkirk on the northwest coast of France. Britain sent every boat it could find across the English Channel to
evacuate the soldiers. The daring rescue saved some 338,000 men.
Paris soon fell to the Germans as well. Mussolini took this opportunity to declare war on Great Britain and France. On June 22,
France surrendered to Germany. Under the terms of the armistice, Germany occupied three fifths of the country. A puppet
government ruled the unoccupied region. It was called Vichy France, for the town that was its capital.
The Battle of BritainThe fall of France left Great Britain to face Hitler alone. Britains new prime minister, Winston Churchill,
vowed to continue the fight. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, he declared. We shall fight on the beaches,
landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender.
Hitler, however, was determined to conquer Britain, the last holdout against Nazi rule. Yet he realized that Britains navy could
keep his army from crossing the English Channel. To counter that threat, Germany had to control the air. Hitler set up bases in
conquered lands from France to Norway and moved some 2,500 bombers and fighter planes to them.
From these bases, German planes flew thousands of air raids
over Great Britain in the summer and fall of 1940. They bombed
ports, airfields, radar stations, and industrial centers. Fighter
planes of the Royal Air Force (RAF) countered this onslaught in
what became known as the Battle of Britain. Between July and
October, the RAF had lost 915 aircraft. However, RAF pilots
had downed more than 1,700 German aircraft.
In September 1940, Britain launched its first bombing raid on
Berlin. After that, Hitler shifted his targets to British
cities. Bombing attacks over the next several months
devastated parts of London and other large cities. Londoners called this period the Blitz, a shortening of Blitzkrieg. By spring
1941, the number of raids dwindled. German industry simply could not replace the lost planes
fast enough. The British had successfully defended their homeland. Their victory raised hopes
that Hitler could be stopped.
The United States Prepares for WarWhen war broke out in Europe, isolationism lost some
of its appeal for Americans. Most wanted to help the Allies, but they did not want the United
States to get involved in the fighting. Yet France and Britain needed weapons, and the
Neutrality Acts banned arms sales to belligerent nations.So in November 1939, Congress
passed another Neutrality Act through Congress that repealed the arms embargo. However, the new law included a cash-andcarry provision. Nations had to pay cash for materials and carry them away in their own ships.
After the fall of France, the United States finally began to prepare for war. Defense spending soared, as did the size of the
army. In September 1940, Congress enacted the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history. Yet during the 1940 election
campaign, President Roosevelt assured Americans, Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars. Still hoping to
avoid war, Americans elected him to an unprecedented third term.

In December 1940, with the Battle of Britain still raging, Churchill declared that his country was nearly bankrupt. Roosevelt was
determined to provide Britain all aid short of war. He urged Congress to adopt a plan to lend, not sell, arms to Britain. This
legislation, the Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941, but only after heated public and congressional debate.
In June 1941, Hitler broke his pact with Stalin by attacking the Soviet Union. The Soviet army retreated in the face of the
invasion. With Churchills support, the United States began sending supplies to the Soviets under the Lend-Lease Act. In August,
Churchill and Roosevelt secretly met aboard warships in Canadian waters of the North Atlantic. There they prepared a
declaration of post-war aims known as the Atlantic Charter, which later influenced the charter of the United Nations. Both
agreed to not use the war to seek new territory or to make peace with the Axis separately. They also asserted the right of all
peoples to self-government. Three months later, Congress voted to allow American merchant ships to arm themselves and sail
to Britain.
The United States Enters the WarWhile war raged in Europe, Japan
continued its expansion in Asia. After Hitler conquered France, Japanese troops
pushed into French Indochina, in Southeast Asia. Japan also set its sights on the
Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), then colonies of German-occupied
Netherlands, and on British Malaya. These regions would provide the oil, rubber,
and other raw materials needed by Japanese industries.
Meanwhile, hoping to keep the United States out of the war, Hitler sought to
expand his alliance. In September 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the
Tripartite Pact, making Japan a member of the Axis Powers. The three nations
agreed to provide mutual support in the event that any one of them was attacked
by a country not yet in the war. The attacker they had in mind was the United States. If the United States entered the war, it
would be forced to fight in both Asia and Europe. Hitler hoped that the threat of a two-front war would ensure American neutrality
for a while longer. However, events caused his Japanese allies to pursue different plans.
The United States reacted strongly to Japans actions in Indochina. In August 1941, it froze Japanese assets in the United
States and banned the export of American oil and other vital resources to Japan. When efforts to peacefully obtain oil from the
Dutch East Indies failed, Japanese leaders decided that war with the United States could not be avoided. In October 1941,
General Hideki Tojo became prime minister of Japan, replacing a civilian leader. Tojo, an aggressive militarist, prepared the
nation for war.
On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft carriers approached Hawaii, where the U.S. Pacific Fleet was anchored at Pearl
Harbor. From these carriers, more than 300 bombers and fighter planes launched an attack on Pearl Harbor. In just over two
hours, the Japanese damaged or destroyed 18 American warships and about 300 military aircraft. More than 2,400 Americans
were killed and some 1,200 wounded. However, the Japanese failed to sink any American aircraft carriers, which had been out
to sea during the attack. This failure would prove critical in the Pacific war that followed.

4. The War in Europe, 19421945

In late December 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston
Churchill met in Washington, D.C. Their purpose was to devise
a strategy to help the Allies defeat the Axis Powers. They knew
they could not afford to fight an offensive war on two fronts
Europe and the Pacificat the same time. So they decided to
concentrate most of their forces on first winning back Europe,
while fighting only a defensive war against Japan in the
Pacific.
Nazis Invade the Soviet Union and North AfricaThe Axis
controlled much of Europe and North Africa at the start of
1942. Great Britain had saved itself but the Nazis had invaded
the Soviet Union, using Blitzkrieg tactics to overcome Soviet
troops massed at the border. One large German force nearly
reached Moscow before the onset of winter froze it in its
tracks. Another force marched toward the Soviet Unions oilrich Caucasus region.
Oil played a key role in Axis strategy. Hitler already controlled
oil fields in Romania, but he sought more oil to keep his war
machine running. He also hoped to cut off Allied oil from the
Middle East.But first he had to secure North Africa by pushing
the British out of Egypt. In 1941, Hitler sent the Afrika Korps, a
tank-based army division commanded by Erwin Rommel, to
bolster the Italian army struggling against the British in North
Africa. By June 1942, Rommels force had taken much of the region and driven deep into Egypt.
Nazis Begin to Persecute the JewsConquered nations suffered greatly under Nazi rule. Millions of Europeans were forced
to work in the German arms industry. The Germans treated Russians, Poles, and other Slavs with special contempt, partly
because Hitler claimed that Slavs were subhuman. The Nazis worked them to death and killed large numbers of them outright.
No group suffered under Nazi Germany more than the Jews. After Hitler came to power, he passed laws that increasingly
persecuted Jews and stripped them of their rights. Many Jews tried to flee, but most countries, including the United States,
refused to admit more than a token number of refugees.Hitler had long been obsessed with the Jewish questionhow to rid
Germany of Jews. As German rule expanded, more Jews came under Nazi control and the Jewish question grew more critical
to the Nazis. In some places, the Nazis forced Jews into overcrowded ghettos, small sections of cities that could be walled off
and guarded. Hundreds of thousands of Jews in these ghettos died from starvation and disease. In just two of the hundreds of
ghettos, more than 112,000 died between 1941 and 1942 alone.
Eventually, Hitler decided on what the Nazis called the final solutiona plan to systematically
exterminate the Jews of Europe and North Africa. The slaughter began in the Soviet Union,
shortly after the invasion in 1941. Mobile killing squads rounded up and murdered more than a
million Soviet Jews. In early 1942, the Nazis built the first of six death camps in Poland. Jews,
many from ghettos, were shipped to these camps by rail, often packed into cattle cars.
Unlike regular concentration camps, these death camps were equipped with gas
chambers. Camp operators sealed groups of Jews and other prisoners inside these rooms and turned on the deadly poison gas,
usually hydrogen cyanide. Pregnant women, young children, the elderly, and the sick were gassed soon as soon as they
arrived. Some able-bodied prisoners were kept alive as long as they could work, often at a nearby factory. Each death camp

could murder thousands of people each month. In addition to Jews, the Nazis gassed gay men and women, disabled people,
and Gypsies, among others.
The Allies Debate War StrategiesWhen Roosevelt and Churchill met in Washington in December 1941, they had only a
vague understanding of the extent of Hitlers extermination policies. Their goal was to figure out how to win the war in Europe. To
do this, they had to choose from a number of possible strategies.
Invading occupied France was a possibility, because the French people would support such an invasion. Also, nearby Britain
could serve as a staging area for the massing of troops and resources before the assault. But the German army had a strong
presence in France that would make such an invasion extremely difficult. Some thought a direct attack on Italy made more
sense. The Italian army was fairly weak, and Italy would provide a good base for securing the rest of Europe. Others wanted to
launch the Allied offensive in North Africa, which was not as well defended and could serve as a gateway to Europe. But it was
far from the final target, Germany, and would also test the Allies ability to transport and supply their forces.
Great Britains choice of strategy was clear. Already caught up in the battle for North Africa, Churchill wanted the Allies to strike
there first. In contrast, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin wanted an invasion of France to take pressure off his army. The USSR, now
one of the Allies, greatly needed help. Roosevelt eventually was convinced to support the British plan. In June 1942, he made
the decision to invade North Africa in the fall.
Allied Gains in North Africa and ItalyIn November 1942,
Allied forces made sea landings in Morocco and Algeria. Led
by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, they swept east
into Tunisia. The Germans quickly sent reinforcements across
the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, British forces stopped Rommel
and forced him out of Egypt. Rommels Afrika Korps retreated
west toward Tunisia, with the British in hot pursuit.
American soldiers did their first fighting of the war in a series of
battles in the winter of 19421943 in Tunisia. They helped the
combined Allied armies launch a final offensive in May
1943. Axis resistance collapsed in North Africa, leaving about
250,000 German and Italian soldiers in the hands of the Allies.
Using North Africa as a staging area, the Allies crossed the
Mediterranean into Sicily, a large island in southern Italy. The massive invasion in July 1943 met little opposition at first. Its
success alarmed many Italians. Mussolinis North Africa campaign and several other failures had caused them to lose faith in Il
Duce. The Fascist Grand Council met on July 24 and voted to restore the king and parliament to power. Mussolini resigned the
next day. Italy soon surrendered to the Allies. In October it declared war on Germany.
German troops remained in Italy, however. As the Allies pushed north, the Germans battled them every step of the way. By
October, the Allied army had taken about a third of the Italian peninsula, but they did not get much farther that year. A solid
German defensive line completely stopped the Allies about 60 miles south of Rome, the Italian capital.
The Battle of StalingradThe decision to invade North Africa left the Soviet Union on its own. In June 1942, Axis troops began
to push farther into Soviet territory. Hitler split his forces so they could seize the rest of the Caucasus and also take Stalingrad, a
large city on the Volga River. At Stalingrad, German firebombs set most of the city ablaze, but Stalin ordered his soldiers to not
retreat. By mid-September, Axis troops had a large Soviet force trapped in a strip of the city along the Volga.
Fierce street-by-street fighting followed for two months. Then, in November, the Soviet Red Army began a counterattack,
sending its troops forward against the Nazi assault. In a few days, the Soviets had encircled the German troops. Hitler insisted
that his soldiers fight to the death, which most of them did. In January 1943, the remains of Hitlers army, starving and frozen in
the bitter Russian winter, surrendered. The Battle of Stalingrad cost Germany more than 200,000 troops, while more than a
million Soviet soldiers died. However, the Soviet victory forced the Germans to retreat, giving up all they had gained since June
1942.

Allied Bombing CampaignsHitlers losses in the Soviet

Union left Germany with only one major source of oil
Romania. The Romanian oil fields became a prime target of
Allied bombing. However, the Allies main target in their air
campaign was Germany.
American pilots typically launched daytime raids. They favored
aiming at specific targets such as oil refineries, railroads, and
factories with the intent of disrupting Germanys ability to
supply and equip its fighting forces. By the end of the war,
Germanys infrastructure and economy were in ruins.
British pilots relied mainly on saturation bombing, the rapid
release of a large number of bombs over a wide area. They
usually flew nighttime raids over enemy cities. The strategy behind bombing cities, with its appalling loss of life, was to destroy
civilian morale and force a surrender. This tactic turned German cities like Dresden and Hamburg into rubble-strewn
graveyards. However, it did not bring an early end to the war.
In August 1944, American planes dropped more than a thousand bombs on an oil-production facility in Poland. Five miles to the
west stood Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp. Jewish organizations and others urged the United States to bomb
Auschwitz. If the gas chambers or nearby rail lines were destroyed, they said, thousands of lives could be saved. American
military officials denied these appeals. They said they could not afford to divert resources from military targets. Their main goal
was to hasten the end of the war.
The Allies Liberate FranceTo meet that goal, Allies focused most of their resources in 1944 on an invasion of
France. General Eisenhower directed the effort. To prepare for the invasion he gathered more than 1.5 million troops in southern
England. Also at his command were some 1,200 warships, 800 troops transport ships, 4,000 landing craft, 10,000 airplanes, and
hundreds of tanks. Troops would cross the English Channel by ship to Normandy, in northern France.
D-Daythe day the invasion begancame on June 6, 1944. Allied planes overhead and warships offshore provided covering
fire, while landing craft delivered some 50,000 soldiers and 1,500 tanks to five Normandy beaches. German forces with wellentrenched guns put up a fierce resistance. However, by the end of the day nearly 150,000 Allied troops had come ashore and
controlled a 59-mile section of the Normandy coast. Over the next few weeks the rest of the Allies huge army followed them into
France.
In July, an American army under General Omar Bradley and a British army under General Bernard Montgomery began a rapid
sweep across France. In August, the Allies liberated Paris. In September, the first American troops crossed the French border
into Germany.

The Horror of the HolocaustAs American, British, and other

Allied troops

carried out the invasion of France, the Red Army chased a

retreating German force out of the Soviet Union and into
Poland.The Nazis frantically tried to hide evidence of their
concentration camps in Poland. They cleared out many of the
forced-labor camps, marching prisoners westward and
shooting any who fell behind.They also tried to dismantle
some of the death camps, quickly killing the remaining
prisoners. With the Soviet army closing in on Auschwitz, the
Nazis crowded about 60,000 Jews and others onto freight
trains and shipped them west into Germany. The survivors
ended up in camps such as Buchenwald and Dachau.
Allied forces invading Germany from France stumbled upon
concentration camps. These camps, though not as grim as
the death camps of Poland, shocked the soldiers. They held
thousands of slave laborers, starved to near death. Many of
these Holocaust victims, too sick to even eat, died in the weeks after they were liberated. At Dachau, the smell of rotting flesh
led American GIs to 28 railway cars packed with dead bodies. They also uncovered evidence of medical research. Nazi doctors
at the camp had carried out inhumane medical experiments on more than 3,500 prisoners.
The Nazis committed crimes so reprehensible that no word existed to describe them. In 1944, a Polish Jew coined the
term genocide to refer to the systematic killing of a racial, political, or cultural group. The Nazis murdered 6 million Jews, or onethird of the worlds Jewish population. An existing word that means sacrifice by fire holocaustwas capitalized to give a
name to this terrible slaughter. The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored, persecution and murder of Jews by the
Nazis. The Nazis also murdered Gypsies, Serbs, Polish intellectuals, resistance fighters from all the nations, German opponents
of Nazism, gay people, Jehovahs Witnesses, disabled people, habitual criminals, and the poor.
The War in Europe EndsWhen the Allies crossed from
France into Germany, they met fierce resistance. By December
1944, their offensive had stalled. Hitler made plans to burst
through the Allied lines in the wooded Ardennes region of
Belgium, where the American forces were weakest. He
launched his counteroffensive on December 16. Eight German
armored divisions smashed into the surprised Americans,
creating a huge bulge in the American line. Allied air support
and quick action by General George Pattons Third Army
forced the Germans to withdraw by mid-January. The Battle of
the Bulge was the last German offensive on the western front.
By April 1945, the Red Army had fought its way through
Poland and into Germany, to the outskirts of Berlin. On April
30, with advancing Soviet soldiers just half a mile from his
Berlin bunker, Hitler killed himself. German forces quickly began surrendering. On May 8Victory in Europe Day or V-E Day
the war in Europe officially ended.

5. The War in Asia, 19421945

Japans attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was the first in a series of strikes against Allied territory in the
Pacific. Within hours, Japanese planes had also attacked U.S. bases in the Philippines and British forces in Hong Kong, and
Japanese troops landed in Malaya. By the end of March 1942, the Japanese had captured Hong Kong and Singapore, the

American islands of Guam and Wake, and the oil-rich Dutch East Indies. Japan had also invaded several larger possessions of
the Allies, including the American-held Philippine Islands and the British colony of Burma.
In the Philippines, Americans and Filipinos under General Douglas MacArthur resisted a fierce Japanese onslaught. Disease
and malnutrition killed many of the defenders. In March 1942, President Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to leave the islands. I
shall return, MacArthur promised the Americans and Filipinos he left behind. Two months later, Japan completed its conquest of
the Philippines. On the largest island, the Japanese marched 70,000 American and Filipino defenders 63 miles up the Bataan
Peninsula to a prison camp. Japanese soldiers beat and bayoneted those who could not keep up. More than 7,000 died on the
brutal Bataan Death March.
The fall of Burma, in May 1942, had serious consequences. Japan controlled most of coastal China, so no supplies could reach
the Chinese army by sea. It relied on British and American supplies carried in from India over the Burma Road. Now Japan had
cut this lifeline. If Japan defeated China, hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers would be free to fight elsewhere. To help
China keep fighting, the Allies set up an airborne supply route over the Himalayas.
The Pacific War BeginsJapans string of victories in the
Pacific hurt the Allies confidence. To boost morale, President
Roosevelt asked for a strike on the Japanese home
islands. Military strategists came up with a plan to fly B-25
bombers off an aircraft carrier. The B-25 could make a short
takeoff. It also had the range to reach Japan and then land at
Allied airfields in China.
On April 18, 1942, 16 bombers took off from the U.S.
carrier Hornet, which had sailed to within 650 miles of Japan,
to bomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Although the
surprise attack did little damage, it thrilled Americans as much
as it shocked the Japanese. Japan reacted by putting more precious resources into defending the home islands.
The Americans also learned of Japanese activity far to the south in the Coral Sea. The Japanese were moving into position to
isolate Australia, a key ally. To stop them, the United States sent two aircraft carriers, several cruisers, and a few destroyersall
that could spared at the timeto face a larger Japanese force that included three carriers.
The resulting Battle of the Coral Sea, in early May 1942, was fought entirely by carrier-based aircraft. It was the first naval battle
in history in which the enemies warships never came within sight of each other. Japanese aircraft sank one U.S. carrier and
damaged the other. American planes sank one Japanese carrier and damaged the other two. Despite the fairly even losses, the
Americans gained a strategic victory and blocked Japanese expansion to the south.
The Allies Stop Japanese ExpansionThe United States led the Allied forces in the Pacific and did most of the fighting. The
Europe First approach to the war put Pacific commanders at a disadvantage. Because they had fewer ships, planes, and
soldiers than the Japanese, a defensive strategy made sense. U.S. naval forces would try to contain the Japanese by stopping
their expansion in the Central and South Pacific.
American forces achieved this goal at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Americans
intercepted a Japanese message telling of plans for a major offensive. They figured out that
the target was the U.S. base at Midway, a pair of islands about 1,200 miles northwest of Pearl
Harbor. With this knowledge, the navy sat in wait for the Japanese fleet. When it was in striking
distance, American planes from Midway and from three aircraft carriers demolished the enemy
force. All four Japanese carriers and about 300 aircraft were destroyed. Japan never recovered
from these losses. The Battle of Midway was its last offensive action.

The Allies Turn the TideAfter the Battle of Midway, the Allies went on the offensive. They followed a strategy of capturing
Japanese-held islands using them as stepping-stones. Each captured island became a base for attacks on other islands. A tactic
known as leapfroggingbypassing or jumping over certain islandsallowed them to carry out this strategy with limited
resources. Cut off from reinforcements and supplies, Japanese forces on the bypassed islands were left to wither.
The Allied offensive began August 1942, when 11,000 U.S. Marines invaded Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands northeast of
Australia. After months of resistance, Japanese troops abandoned the island in February 1943. They left behind more than
25,000 dead defenders.
Despite the success of leapfrogging, many of the island
invasions came at a terrible cost. Thousands of soldiers died
in the jungles of Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Tarawa, and
Saipan. But they kept pushing the Japanese back, closer and
closer to the home islands of Japan. In October 1944,
MacArthur made his triumphant return to the Philippines,
where his forces would battle the Japanese until the end of the
war. In August 1944, the Marines finished retaking the Mariana
Islands. The Marianas campaign was a landmark victory. It
gave the Allies secure bases from which U.S. B-29s could
make long-range bombing
raids on Japan.
The Allies Push Toward
JapanThe Allied push
through the Pacific steadily
shrank the defensive perimeter the Japanese had established around Japan. That perimeter
disappeared after the Allies captured the key islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in early
1945. Iwo Jimas airfields provided a base for fighter planes to escort bombers over
Japan. Control of Okinawa, just 310 miles south of Japan, gave Americans a staging area for
an invasion of Japan itself.
On the small volcanic island of Iwo Jima, the defenders dug caves, tunnels, and concrete-lined
bunkers. Three months of Allied bombardment before the February 1945 invasion did little to
soften these defenses. The month-long land battle was among the bloodiest of the war. Nearly all of the 22,000 Japanese troops
fought to their deaths. More than 6,800 American troops also died.
To take the much larger Okinawa, the Allies mounted a huge invasion in April 1945. More than 1,200 American and British ships,
including 40 aircraft carriers, supported a force of 182,000 American troops. As on Iwo Jima, the 120,000 troops defending
Okinawa fiercely resisted the invaders. The Battle of Okinawa continued for two months. It claimed the lives of some 12,000
American and more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers.
Developing the First Nuclear WeaponThe capture of Okinawa set the stage for a final invasion of Japan. However,
American scientists had been working on another option. In 1939, German-born Jewish American scientist Albert Einstein had
written to President Roosevelt explaining that scientists might be able to turn uranium into a new form of energy. That energy, he
said, could be harnessed to build extremely powerful bombs. The power would come from the energy suddenly released by
splitting the nuclei of uranium or plutonium atoms. Einstein expressed his fear that Germany was already engaged in
experiments to create such a weapon.

Three years after Einstein sent his letter, the U.S. government established a top-secret program to develop an atomic weapon. A
team of scientists, many of whom had fled fascism in Europe, carried out this work. By the summer of 1945, their efforts had
produced the first atomic bomb, or A-bomb. On July 16, a test bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert.
The U.S. Decides to Drop the BombNew American president Harry Truman faced a difficult decision. He had taken office
just weeks earlier, when President Roosevelt died. Truman now had to decide whether to drop an atomic bomb on Japan or to
launch an invasion. After Iwo Jima and Okinawa, he knew an invasion would produce enormous casualties. The number of Allies
killed and wounded might reach half a million, he was told.
Truman faced a stubborn enemy. American B-29s were already destroying Japan with conventional bombs, including
firebombs. This bombing campaign had killed hundreds of thousands of people and turned large areas of Japans cities, with
their masses of wooden buildings, into cinders. At the same time, a naval blockade had cut off the supply of raw materials to
Japan. Many of Japans leaders realized that it could not possibly win the war. Yet the Japanese refused to accept Trumans
demands for an unconditional surrender.
Some U.S. strategists believed only the shock of the still secret A-bomb would end the Japanese resistance. Others opposed it,
insisting that the current bombing campaign would soon bring surrender. Some A-bomb opponents claimed that the Japanese
would give up if Truman would agree to let them keep their beloved emperor. However, Truman stuck to his demand for an
unconditional surrender. He warned Japan that the alternative was prompt and utter destruction.
Two A-bombs End the War in the PacificOn August 6, 1945, an American B-29 named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb
on Hiroshima, Japan, a city of 300,000 people. Within seconds of the explosion, up to 80,000 people died. The blasts shock
wave toppled nearly 60,000 structures. Hundreds of fires consumed the rest of the city. Three days later, the United States
dropped a second bomb, wiping out the city of Nagasaki and instantly killing some 40,000 people. As many as 250,000
Japanese may have died from the two bombs, either directly or as the result of burns, radiation poisoning, or cancer.
The destruction of Nagasaki brought a Japanese
surrender. Truman received it on August 14, Victory over
Japan Day, or V-J Day. The terms of the surrender allowed the
emperor to keep his office but only in a ceremonial role. In
September, the Allies officially accepted the surrender aboard
the American battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
The Cost of World War IIMillions worldwide celebrated V-J
Day, which marked the end of the Second World War. But they
also mourned the loss of life. As many as 60 million people
died in World War IIabout half of them civilians. The Soviet
Union had the highest losses. Perhaps 20 million or more
Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed, although an accurate
count was never made.Poland was also hard hit, suffering
about 6 million deaths, nearly all of them civilians. Nearly 2 million Japanese were killed and more than 4 million
Germans. Britain, France, and the United States each lost several hundred thousand people.
More than 20 million Europeans were made homeless by the fighting. The huge number of dead and homeless in China and the
rest of Asia will probably never be known. Nor can the cost of all the property destroyed, resources depleted, and economic
activity disrupted by the war. Just the money governments paid to fight the war totaled more than a trillion dollars.

War Crimes Trials and RestructuringThe Allies made a number of demands of the Axis
Powers at the end of World War II.Germany and Japan had to disarm and give up all territory
they had taken. They also were temporarily occupied by Allied forces.The Allies did not want to
inflict more suffering on the people of these defeated nations. However, they did want to punish
those who had committed war crimes.
In November 1945, the Allies put 22 Nazi leaders on trial in the German city of
Nuremberg. They were charged not only with war crimes but also with crimes against
humanity, such as enslavement, extermination, and persecution on racial or political
grounds.Judges from the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France heard their
cases. Twelve defendants were condemned to death by hanging, seven received prison terms, and three were acquitted in
the Nuremberg Trials. Other cases followed, including convictions of officials who ran concentration camps and doctors who
carried out gruesome medical experiments on prisoners.
In October 1946, a separate court in Tokyo put 28 Japanese war criminals on trial. All were found guilty. Sixteen received life
sentences. Seven were sentenced to death by hanging, including Prime Minister Tojo and the general responsible for the Bataan
Death March.
The Allies also set out to restructure Germany and Japan after the war. Germany was divided into four military occupation
zones, one each for the United States, the USSR, France, and Britain. Berlin, which lay entirely within the Soviet zone, also was
divided in four partsone for each occupying power. The Americans took a different approach to postwar Japan. They put
American General MacArthur in charge of the country. Allied soldiers occupied Japan, but they did not control it directly as they
did in Germany. Instead, the Japanese government carried out the political reforms that MacArthur and his staff
prescribed. However, MacArthur had ultimate power in Japan, and could overrule Japanese decisions as he saw fit.
After dissolving Japans empire and disbanding its military, the Allies worked to bring democracy to Japan. Officials under
MacArthur prepared a new constitution. It set up a parliamentary government, based on the British model, with a strong
legislature and an independent judiciary. The emperor would only have ceremonial powers. Women as well as men could elect
members of parliament, and a bill of rights ensured civil and political liberties. MacArthur also ensured that its constitution
renounced the use of force as an instrument of power. Japan was restored to full sovereignty in 1951. However, many more
years would pass before Germany regained full independence.