Japanese Victories

• Moving quickly, the Japanese took Wake Island, Guam, the Philippines, and by the end of 1942 controlled nearly all of the Pacific

• The Japanese claimed to be “liberating” these lands from European/American control, but proved to be more cruel than the previous overseers ever were

Turning the Tide

• Though the Japanese seemed invincible in 1942, the Allies (mostly US/Australia) struck back

• Tokyo was bombed, and though the bombing did little physical damage, psychologically, Japan began to feel vulnerable

• At the battle of the Coral Sea, the Japanese advance toward Australia was stopped

The Battle of Midway

• This is a battle the Allies should have lost, they were outnumbered and outgunned. Luck and timing saved the day

• Midway was a trap the Japanese set to lure the American fleet in, and the Americans obliged. The US attack, however, was timed at the exact moment when enemy ships/planes were vulnerable, and the US gained a stunning victory

General Douglas MacArthur

• Distinguished himself during WW1, was posted to the Philippines in 1935

• Was called out shortly before the islands fell to the Japanese in 1941, but vowed to return. Became the Allied land forced commander in the Pacific

• His idea of “island hopping” was to bypass Japanese strongholds and take island closer to Japan

The Battle of Guadalcanal

• MacArthur’s first target presented itself quickly—Guadalcanal. The Japanese were building a base there, and the US wanted to take it before it became a stronghold.

• After months of savage fighting, the Japanese abandoned what they came to call “the Island of Death”

The Holocaust

• The German “new racial order” didn’t include non-”Aryans”, especially Jews

• Years of sustained propaganda against Jews led everyday Germans to view them as enemies of the state.

The Beginning

• In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship

• In 1938, a violent attack on Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues left hundreds dead, and was termed the Kristallnacht—the “Night of Broken Glass”

• At first, Hitler favored emigration to solve his “Jewish Problem,” however, neighboring countries stopped taking Jewish refugees

Isolation in the Ghettos• Once emigration failed,

Hitler ordered all Jewish peoples to be moved to areas of designated cities.

• These areas, called ghettos, were overcrowded, unsanitary, and abhorrent. They were sealed in by barbed wire and stone walls

The Final Solution

• Hitler’s “Final Solution,” an amalgamation of killing squads, labor camps and extermination camps amounted to genocide

• Slave labor (Concentration) camps helped the German war effort and produced goods

• Extermination camps like Auschwitz could kill 6,000 people a day.

• In the end Hitler killed more than 60% of Europe’s Jews—over 6 million.

The Allied Counterstrategy

• Roosevelt & Churchill met to develop a plan to strike back at the Germans in 1941.

• Stalin had been pushing for Britain to open up another front in the west to alleviate pressure on Russia in the east. Initially, Roosevelt didn’t trust Stalin and was reluctant, but eventually agreed.

• The Allies would weaken Germany on two fronts before dealing a deathblow.

North Africa

• Feeling that opening up a front in France would be too costly, the British & Americans focused on North Africa.

• The Battle of El Alamein began the German retreat, as 1000 British artillery guns pounded German defenses

• General Dwight Eisenhower led the Operation Torch, the crushing of Rommel’s Afrika Corps

Stalingrad

• In the summer of 1942, the Germans set out to capture the Caucasus oil fields and Stalingrad.

• By November, Germans controlled 90% of the city, but the Russians refused to surrender.

• Winter set in, and the Russian counterattack trapped the Germans in the city.

• In February of 1943, 90,000 frostbitten, starving German troops surrendered.

The Invasion of Italy

• The British & Americans decided to attack Italy first. In July of 1943 they landed on Sicily, and within a month Italy had fallen.

• Hitler came to his ally Mussolini’s aid. The Germans retook Northern Italy and put Mussolini back in charge

• But, by 1944, the Allies had defeated the Italian/Nazi forces.

The End of Mussolini

• On April 27, 1945, Italian resistance fighters ambushed a German convoy.

• Inside, they found Mussolini disguised as a German soldier

• The next day he was shot and his body was displayed in Milan

The Home Front• The United States, with

its industrial might, supplied much of the Allied war effort.

• Propaganda was used to inspire people to sacrifice for the war effort

• In the US, Japanese-American people were rounded up and placed in interment camps