 Battles that made the difference

 Lebensraum was an idea that motivated expansion  When Hitler starts taking territories Chamberlain (British) urged use of appeasement o Hitler takes the Rhineland o Takes Austria with Anschluss o Takes the Sudetenland with Munich Agreement o Makes a Non-Aggression pact with the Soviet Union o Invades Poland Sept. 1939

 Hitler invades the Soviet Union o In ‘41 Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union and pushed east but never scored any major victories because of the Stalin’s scorched earth policy o Stalin knew that he could not stand up directly to Hitler’s forces so he pushed deeper into the USSR and burned the cities he abandoned o By ‘42 Hitler hoped to invade the USSR past the Ukraine and take Stalingrad but was held up in the Crimea by Mussolini

 Battle of Stalingrad o Hitler leaves later then he wanted in Nov. of ‘42 and pushes towards Stalingrad along the Volga River o Hitler destroys the city but the Soviets were given the “Not a Step Back” order by Stalin and used bombed out factories as defensive positions and fought o Eventually Hitler’s general Paulus was forced to surrender since they were out of supplies and many of their soldiers had starved in Feb. of ‘43

 Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941 o Caused in reaction to American assistance via Lend Lease Act of ‘41 and assistance to China in Indo-China o Japanese generals concerned that they needed to push into the United States but Hidekei Tojo pulls them back and only angers the Americans o Americans began to fight back but knew that they needed to destroy the air craft carriers of the Japanese in order to control the Pacific o America had been able to decode the Japanese messages but the Japanese could not figure our the “code talkers” language

 Battle of Midway o After decoding information that gave Americans the location of Japan’s 4 main aircraft carriers Americans move our forces north and wait until the planes have left the carriers vulnerable to attack o Our planes get lost and find the carriers in shifts with our two first waves being entirely destroyed o Third wave destroys all 4 carriers giving the Americans the advantage in the Pacific o Douglas MacArthur uses “island hopping” to move closer to Japan for an eventual invasion

 Fighting took place in the Leyte Gulf around the Philippine Islands  America takes the advantage fighting in jungle warfare and mostly naval attacks  Japanese start using kamikaze pilots  America destroys more than 500 planes, 3 battleships and 4 aircraft carriers

 Iwo Jima was a small island but heavily guarded o Good strategic outpost for american bombers close to Japan o Difficult terrain and heavily guarded o More than 6000 Americans are killed with over Japanese dead  Battle of Okinawa o April 1945, o Almost 2000 kamikaze attacks o Almost 8000 Americans died and Japanese

 D-Day (Dooms Day) June 6 th, 1944 o After much debate Stalin and FDR decide that they should send their troops through the beaches of Normandy, France and retake France o Dwight D. Eisenhower leads the American forces onto the beaches in a stunning amphibious assault and retakes parts of France. Rather than just using battleships to attack from a distance small boats send wave after wave of soldiers onto the beaches and planes drop off men via parachute. o This battle was seen as the turning point for the Western side of Europe since Allied forces controlled the beaches and could then bring more troops (2 million)

 Harry S. Truman who replaced FDR decides to use the nuke o The Manhattan project was a code for the development of nuclear arms. o We had successfully tested one in early ‘45 but were uncertain of its long term affects on its victims. o After firebombing Tokyo and then destroying the majority of 67 different cities we decide to drop one on Japan before someone else uses one on us.

 August 6 we drop a nuke on Hiroshima  August 9 we drop one on Nagasaki  August 14 th the Japanese surrender o Was it necessary? Was this the right call?