American History Review

World War II

June 1, 2010

 

Test:

50 questions (2 points each = 100 points total):

·        40 multiple choice

·          5 matching

·          5 short answer (map exercise)

 

People:

Douglas MacArthur = general who kept his promise to return to the Philippines

 

George Patton = general who was known for his skill at tank strategy

 

Erwin Rommel = Afrika Korps commander who became known as “the Desert Fox”

 

Omar Bradley = led Allied soldiers into Paris.  During the liberation of their country, French citizens surged out into the streets in support of the U.S. forces.  Bradley Fighting Vehicles are named for him.

 

George C. Marshall = U.S. general who was President Roosevelt’s top military adviser

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower = Supreme Allied Commander and became President of the U.S. after the war

 

Holocaust:

The Holocaust stemmed from Nazi aggression and persecution; about 6,000,000 Jews—about two thirds of all Jews living in Europe before the war—and about 3,000,000 other people were killed by the Nazis

 

In Poland the Nazis uprooted Jews from their homes in the countryside and forced them into isolated urban areas known as ghettos.

 

Jews arriving at Nazi death camps across Europe were sent to work as slave labor in camp factories or go to gas chambers for immediate execution

 

By the end of 1941 the Einsatzgruppen had rounded up and killed some 600,000 Jews; by mid-1942 the Nazis began to ship Jews from all areas of German-occupied Europe to death camps across Europe

 

Genocide = deliberate murder of an entire people

 

Home Front:

As men left the workforce to join the armed forces, women replaced them in factories and business offices; over 300,000 women worked in the armed forces.

 

African Americans = about 1,000,000 fought in WWII and many more took jobs in factories to aid the war effort

 

The War Production Board = in charge of converting factories to war production; to pay for the war effort, the U.S. government raised taxes and sold war bonds

 

As U.S. farmers attempted to feed Americans as well as the European Allies, agricultural production remained high throughout the war

 

U.S. government removed most Japanese Americans from the West Coast and transported them to remote internment camps throughout the western United States

 

zoot-suit riots = in Los Angeles began when U.S. sailors attacked young Mexican Americans

 

Western Front:

In 1939 the nations known as the Allied Powers were Britain and France; World War II began on September 1, 1939 when German forces invaded Poland.  This attack is known as a “Blitzkrieg” or lightning war = method of warfare that combined dive-bombers in the air and fast-moving tanks on the ground

 

Maginot Line = a fortified wall that France had built along its border with Germany

 

The Battle of Britain = the battles between the British and German air forces for air supremacy over Britain, involving constant attacks on British cities

 

Between April and June 1940, Hitler invaded the western European nations of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France.  Italy joined Germany and declared war on the Allied Powers as Hitler’s forces advanced on the French capital of Paris

 

Two weeks after the invasion of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to focus on the war in Europe, rather than Japan.

 

The purpose of Operation Overlord was to launch an Allied invasion of German-occupied France.  This invasion is also known as “D-Day” = June 6, 1944—the day when thousands of Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy, France

 

Eastern Front:

Germany and the Soviet Union both invaded Poland; Nonaggression Pact = Hitler’s and Stalin’s agreement not to attack one another and to divide Poland between their countries; Hitler broke the nonaggression pact when he invaded the Soviet Union

 

The Soviets saved their nation by defeating the Germans at Stalingrad and Kursk through determination and refusal to give up needed supplies to the invading enemy

 

Pacific Theater:

The Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor after Roosevelt blocked the sale of oil to Japan

 

Immediately after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese went after U.S. holdings in the Pacific and British and Dutch possessions in Southeast Asia

 

Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway = U.S. won these battles after the navy’s code breakers read intercepted Japanese battle plans.  After attack, the Japanese took defensive actions, rather than the offensive at the Battle of Midway

 

Guadalcanal was important to Japan because it offered Japan a base from which its air force could threaten the vital sea link between Australia and the United States

 

island hopping = strategy of Allied troops to advance toward Japan for air attacks from closer bases

 

The Allies took the offensive in the Pacific after winning victories in the Coral Sea, at Midway, and on Guadalcanal

 

Kamikaze = tactic of crashing piloted planes into the enemy’s ships

 

Iwo Jima and Okinawa = Allied forces suffered high casualties as they fought to take Japan’s last island strongholds

 

Atomic Bomb = weapon that offered an alternative to the invasion of Japan; led to the end of the war

 

Japan formally surrendered on September 2, 1945, less than a month after U.S. forces dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on the city of Nagasaki

 

African Campaign:

Battle of El Alamein = fight in north Africa to control the Suez Canal and gain area from which an attack can be launched on Italy

 

After defeating the German Afrika Korps, the Allies launched an offensive campaign in Italy