5th Grade

World War II Notes

The Rise of Dictators

 In the 1920s,       stated in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle): “He who wants to

live must fight, and he who does not want to fight in this world, where eternal struggle is

the law of life, has no right to exist.”

 When Hitler became       leader, he put his strong words into action. Hitler was among

other ruthless leaders to rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s by taking advantage of

people’s       and      

 Some Europeans resented the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. When a

worldwide economic       hit in the 1930s, frustration and fear added to this anger.

Hitler and other leaders promised a       and a glorious future.

 Once they won power, these men became       – leaders who control their nations by

 Benito Mussolini won power by appealing to       who resented that Italy had won little

in the Versailles treaty. Mussolini made       – government characterized by militarism

and racism – popular.

 By 1922, his Fascist Party was able to force Italy’s king to name Mussolini the head of

government. Mussolini soon banned all other political parties.

 Known as       (the leader), Mussolini quickly ended       rule in Italy. Civil liberties

and the free press ceased to exist. Mussolini also built up the military and vowed to

regain the glory of ancient      

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  In 1935 Mussolini took over the African nation of      . The League of Nations banned

the trade of certain goods with Italy, but it lacked the power to enforce the ban. Italy left

the League and continued its expansion, seizing its neighbor       in 1939.

 The Great Depression hit Germany extremely hard. Businesses failed, and millions of

people lost their jobs. Hitler won German support by appealing to fears about the

economy and bitterness over the       treaty.

 Hitler was leader of the National Socialist Party, or the       Party. Hitler and the Nazis

believed the German people were       to other groups of people.

 Hitler blamed the      , including Germans who were Jewish, for Germany’s problems.

His       – hatred of the Jews – would lead to unspeakable horrors.

 After gaining power in 1933, Hitler ended democracy and set up       rule. In a

totalitarian state, leaders crush all opposition and try to totally control all areas of society.

 Hitler claimed that Germany had a right to expand. Germany’s neighbors watched

uneasily as he defied the Versailles treaty and rebuilt Germany’s military. To win

support, Hitler formed an       with Italy in 1936.

 During the Depression the       suffered from lack of jobs and food shortages. Military

leaders believed that Japan needed more land and resources. In September 1931, Japan’s

army invaded mineral-rich      , China’s northeastern region.

 The League of Nations condemned the Japanese invasion but did nothing about it. Japan

then set up a government in Manchuria. In 1937 Japan invaded      . Three years later,

Japan joined Germany and Italy to the “     ” alliance.

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  In the late 1920s,       rose to power as the Communist leader of the Soviet Union.

Stalin used force to obtain obedience from his people. He executed his rivals and sent

millions of people suspected of disloyalty to       camps.

 Most Americans wanted to avoid foreign troubles. To keep the nation out of wars,

Congress passed the       between 1935 and 1937. The Neutrality Acts banned weapons

sales and loans to nations that were at war.

 Many countries had not paid back their World War I       and Congress wanted to

prevent more debts.

Germany on the March

 Hitler moved forward with his plans for      . In March 1936, he ordered German

troops into the      . The Versailles treaty had made the Rhineland, German lands west

of the Rhine River, a neutral area.

 Next, Hitler insisted that German-speaking       should be unified with Germany. In

March 1938, he sent troops into Austria.

 Hitler then turned to the      , an area of Czechoslovakia where many German-speaking

people lived. Falsely claiming that these people were being mistreated, Hitler declared

Germany’s right to take the territory.

 Czechoslovakia was ready to fight to keep the Sudetenland. Britain and France, fearing a

major war, sought a peaceful solution. In September 1938, European leaders met in

     , Germany.

 Britain and France thought that they could avoid war by accepting Germany’s demands –

a policy known as      . At the Munich Conference, British and French leaders agreed

to give the Sudetenland to Germany.

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  Czechoslovakia was told to give up the Sudetenland or fight Germany on its own. Hitler

pledged not to further expand Germany’s territory. British prime minister Neville

Chamberlain, returned home to cheers, declaring that the agreement had preserved “peace

for our time.”

 Hopes for peace were soon dashed. In March 1939, Hitler’s army took the rest of western

Czechoslovakia and set up a pro-Nazi state in the eastern part.

 Meanwhile, Hitler prepared to invade      . He worried, however, that such an attack

would anger Stalin because Poland bordered the Soviet Union. Though bitter enemies,

Hitler and Stalin signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939. Hitler

was now free to attack Poland without fear of Soviet intervention.

War in Europe

 In a speech in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt expressed the feeling of many

Americans toward the growing “epidemic of world lawlessness…We are determined to

keep out of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and

the dangers of involvement.”

 On September 1, 1939, Hitler sent his armies into Poland. Two days later,       declared

war on Germany. World War II had begun.

 The German attack on Poland was swift and      . German planes bombed and

machine-gunned targets. German tanks blasted holes in Polish defenses, and thousands of

soldiers poured into Poland.

 The Germans called the offensive a      , or “lightning war.” Then Soviet troops moved

into and occupied eastern Poland, acting on the Soviet agreement with Germany to divide

Poland.

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  Great Britain and France could do little to help Poland because its defeat came so      .

In late September 1939, the conquered country was split in half by Hitler and Stalin.

 Stalin also forced the       republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to accept Soviet

military bases. When he tried to do the same with Finland, war broke out between the two

nations.

 The Finns held out heroically until March 1940, when the       forced them to

surrender.

 All through the winter of 1939-1940, the western front was quiet. British and French

forces settled in at the      , a string of steel-and-concrete bunkers along the German

border from Belgium to Switzerland. Hitler and his generals decided to attack other

nations before invading France.

 In April, Hitler attacked Denmark and Norway to the north, and the following months he

turned west to invade the Netherlands and Belgium.

 The Netherlands and Belgium immediately asked for help from Great Britain and France

– the Allied Powers, or the      . After bombing raids in the Netherlands, the Dutch

surrendered. The Belgians fought courageously, but they too were overwhelmed.

 With the collapse of Belgium, Allied troops retreated to the port of       in the

northwest corner of France on the English Channel. They were now trapped between the

advancing Germans and the French coast. In a daring move, more than 800 British ships

– warships, ferries, and fishing boats – joined an operation to rescue the troops.

 Crossing the channel again and again, the boats evacuated more than 300,000 French and

British troops to safety.

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  In June the Germans crossed the       River and continued their sweep into France.

Italy joined the war on the side of Germany and attacked France from the southeast.

Germany and Italy – and later Japan – formed the      .

 On June 14, 1940, German troops marched victoriously into      . The French

surrendered a week later.

 All that kept Hitler from taking western Europe was Great Britain. In August 1940, the

Germans bombed British air bases, shipyards, and industries. German planes also

bombed cities, destroying entire areas of       and killing many civilians.

 Hitler’s goal was to break British morale before invading Britain. The British people

endured, however, in part because of the inspiration of Prime Minister Winston      .

When Hitler called for Britain to surrender, Churchill responded defiantly:

 “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we

shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall

fight in the hills; we shall never      .”

 Although the Battle of Britain continued until October, the Germans never gained control

of the skies over Britain. The British Royal Air Force mounted a heroic defense and

inflicted heavy losses on the German air force. Finally, Hitler ended the air attacks.

 Unable to defeat the British, Hitler decided that Germany needed the resources of the

Soviet Union. He also believed that the Soviets’ vast land area could provide “     ” for

Germans.

 In June 1941, German forces attacked the Soviet Union, destroying planes and tanks and

capturing half a million Soviet soldiers. As the Germans advanced, Stalin ordered a

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       policy. The Soviets burned their own cities, destroyed crops, and blew up dams

that produced electric power.

 These actions made it harder for the Germans to supply their troops and to keep

advancing.

American and the War

 The United States watched the war in Europe with concern. Most Americans leaned

toward the      , but they did not want war. Isolationists set up the American First

Committee to further the idea that the United States should stay out of Europe’s

problems.

 Although he vowed to remain neutral, Roosevelt prepared for war. In 1938, at his request,

Congress strengthened the      . In 1939, the president also had Congress pass a new

Neutrality Act. It let warring nations buy U.S. goods as long as they paid cash and carried

the goods in their own ships.

 In 1940 Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime

      in United States history. The law applied to U.S. men between the ages of 21 and

35.

 With the world in crisis, President Roosevelt chose to run for a       term, ending the

tradition of serving two terms set by George Washington. Roosevelt promised

Americans, “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

 The Republican candidate Wendell L. Willkie generally agreed with Roosevelt’s New

Deal and foreign policy but Americans preferred to keep a president they knew.

Roosevelt won an easy victory.

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  With the election won, Roosevelt supported the Allies openly. At Roosevelt’s urging,

Congress passed the       Act in march 1941. This law allowed the United States to sell,

lend, or lease weapons to any country “vital to the defense of the United States.”

 Isolationists opposed the law, arguing that it would bring America closer to war.      ,

short of cash, was the first to use the lend-lease. In mid-1941, Roosevelt also had the

navy protect British ships when they were close to the United States. When the Germans

fired on American destroyers, Roosevelt ordered American ships to “     ” German and

Italian ships found in certain areas.

 In August 1941, President Roosevelt and British prime minister Churchill met and drew

up the      . While Roosevelt made no military promises, he joined Churchill in setting

goals for the world after “the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny.”

 The two nations pledged that the people would be free to choose their own form of

government and live free of “fear and want.” They urged       – giving up military

weapons – and the creation of a “permanent system of general security.”

The Japanese Threat

 While Hitler and Mussolini waged war in Europe, the Japanese made military conquests

in the Far East. After seizing much of China in the 1930s, the Japanese continued their

     . After France’s fall in 1940, they seized French-ruled Indochina in Southeast Asia.

 Japan also planned to take the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, and the American

territory of the      , primarily to acquire badly needed rubber and oil.

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  The United States responded to Japan’s moves by applying economic pressure. Roosevelt

froze all Japanese       in U.S. banks. He also stopped the sale of oil, gasoline, and

other resources that Japan lacked. The action angered the Japanese.

 In October 1941, the Japanese prime minister, Fumimaro Konoye, resigned. Konoye

wanted to hold talks with the United States because he believed Japan could not defeat

America in a war. The new leader, General Hideki Tojo, did not share Konoye’s views.

 Still, on November 20, talks began in Washington. Meanwhile, Tojo’s government began

planning an attack on the      

 At 7:55 am on Sunday,      , 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the American military

base at      , Hawaii. Ships there were anchored in a neat row, and airplanes were

grouped together on the airfield – easy targets for an attack.

 The attack destroyed many battleships, cruisers, and airplanes. More than       soldiers,

sailors, and civilians were killed. Fortunately, at the time of the attack, the navy’s three

aircraft carriers were at sea.

 The Americans at Pearl Harbor were taken completely by surprise. According to

Lieutenant Commander Charles Coe: “The capsizing of the Oklahoma was to me a sight

beyond all belief. It was in fact the most awful thing I had ever seen. To watch this big

battleship capsize and to see only her bottom sticking up out of the water like the back of

a turtle and to realize that U.S. officers and men were still in there – well, I just couldn’t

believe it. It made me realize that war had come to Hawaii.”

 The attack on Pearl Harbor united the country. The next day, Roosevelt asked Congress

to declare war, calling December 7 “a date which will live in      .”

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  On December 11, Germany and Italy – Japan’s allies – declared war on the United States.

Congress then declared war on them. The United States joined the       nations –

including Great Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union – against the       Powers

– Germany, Italy, and Japan.

America Prepares

 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor united the American people as nothing else could.

With astonishing speed, the nation’s economy and its people prepared to fight the war.

 Even before Pearl Harbor, the United States had begun raising an army under the

Selective Service Act of 1940 and 1941. More than       Americans joined the armed

forces during the war, both as volunteers and as draftees.

 New draftees were given physical exams and injections against       and typhoid. The

draftees were then issued uniforms, boots, and equipment. The clothing bore the label

“     ” meaning “government issue.” As a result, American soldiers came to be known

as “Gis”.

 Recruits were sent to basic training for       weeks. They learned how to handle

weapons, load backpacks, read maps, pitch tents, and dig trenches.

 For the first time, large numbers of       served in the military. About 250,000 women

served in the WACs (Women’s Army Corps), the WAVES (Women Appointed for

Volunteer Emergency Service in the Navy), and women’s units in the marines, Coast

Guard, and army air corps. These women did not fight in combat – most performed

      tasks or worked as       – but they played important roles in the war effort.

 Equipping the troops required changes in the nation’s economy. To speed up       –

military and civilian preparations for war – the government created new agencies.

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  The War Production Board supervised the       of industries to war production. Under

its guidance, automakers shifted from building cars to produce trucks, jeeps, and tanks.

 The Office of Price Administration established       on consumer prices and rents to

prevent inflation.

 The National War Labor Board helped resolve labor disputes that might slow down war

production. By the summer of 1942, almost all major industries and some      

companies had converted to war production.

 From 1941 to the end of the war, the U.S. spent more than $320 billion on the war effort

–       times the amount spent in World War I. Much of this money was raised through

taxes.

 The Revenue Act of 1942 raised       taxes and required most Americans to pay      

taxes. Congress approved a system for withholding taxes from workers’ paychecks – a

practice still in effect today.

 The government also borrowed money to finance the war. As in World War I, the

government sold      . Movie stars and other celebrities urged people to buy bonds to

support the war.

Wartime America

 Those who remained at home had to provide food and shelter for all those in uniform.

      also provided training, equipment, transportation, and medical care.

 With the war effort came many sacrifices. For many American families, the war meant

separation from loved ones serving overseas. Those at home lived in dread of receiving a

      announcing that a family member had been killed, wounded, or captured.

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  With industries geared to producing goods to fight the war, Americans faced shortages of

many consumer goods. Many things needed for the war were       – consumers could

buy only limited numbers or amounts of them.

 Americans used government-issued books of ration       to buy certain items, such as

gasoline, tires, sugar, and meat.

Women and Minorities

 The war had a tremendous impact on the lives of women and      . It created

opportunities for new jobs and new roles in society.

 As millions of men joined the armed forces, more women than ever before entered the

labor force. In factories women worked in jobs previously held by men. An advertising

campaign featuring a character called       encouraged women to take factory jobs. For

many women, this was their first opportunity to work outside the home.

 Although women had new job opportunities, they usually earned       than men.

Moreover, when the war ended and the troops returned home, most women would lose

their jobs. Still, the war changed public opinion about women’s right to work.

 About one million       served in the armed forces during the war. At first, most were

given low-level assignments and kept in segregated units.

 Gradually, military leaders assigned African Americans to integrated units. In 1942 the

army began training whites and African Americans together in officer candidate school.

Eventually, African Americans were allowed to take       assignments.

 The 332nd Fighter Group, known as the      , shot down more than 200 enemy planes.

Benjamin Davis Jr., who trained at the Tuskegee flying school, became the first African

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 American general in the United States Air Force. His father, Benjamin Davis, Sr., was the

first African American general in the army.

 In civilian life, African Americans sought change. In the summer of 1941, labor leader A.

Philip Randolph demanded that the government ban discrimination against African

Americans in       industries. He planned a large demonstration in Washington in

support of his demands.

 President Roosevelt persuaded Randolph to call off the march by establishing the Fair

Employment Practices Commission to combat discrimination in industries that held

government contracts. The president announced that “there shall be no       in the

employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed,

color, or national origin.”

 The war accelerated the population shift that began during World War I. Large numbers

of African Americans moved from the rural south to industrialized cities in the North and

West in search of work. In some cities, racial tensions erupted in violence. The      

inspired the African American poet Langston Hughes to write: “Yet you say we’re

fighting’ for democracy. Then why don’t democracy include me?”

 Thousands of       left reservations to work in defense industries and serve in the armed

forces. Ira Hayes became a hero in the battle for Iwo Jima in the Pacific. A special group

of Navajo formed the “     .” Many of the American radio communications about troop

movements and battle plans were intercepted by the Japanese. The code talkers used a

special code based on the Navajo language to send messages – a code that the Japanese

      broke.

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  More than 250,000      , also called Hispanic Americans, served in the armed forces.

The Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military medal, was awarded to 12 Mexican

Americans.

 Mercedes Cubria of Cuba became the first Latina woman officer in the Women’s Army

Corps. Horacio Rivero of Puerto Rico became the first Latino four-star admiral since

David Farragut to serve in the United States Navy.

 Prompted by the wartime need for labor, United States labor agents recruited thousands

of farm and railroad workers from Mexico. This program, called the       program,

stimulate emigration from Mexico.

 Like African Americans, Mexican Americans suffered from discrimination, and their

presence created tensions in some cities. In 1943, for example, a four-day riot started in

______________________ when white soldiers attacked Mexican American teens.

 After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were feared and hated by

other Americans. About two-thirds of Japanese Americans were ________ – American

citizens who were born in the United States. But this fact made little difference to people

who questioned their loyalty.

 Military and political leaders also worried about the loyalty of Japanese Americans if

Japanese forces invaded the United States. President Roosevelt directed the army to

      more than 100,000 Japanese Americans who were living on the West Coast to

      centers.

 Located mostly in desert areas, these       camps were crowded and uncomfortable.

Conditions were harsh.

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  With only days to prepare for the move, most Japanese Americans left valuable

possessions behind. Many abandoned their homes and businesses or sold them at a loss.

Most had to stay in internment camps for the next       years.

 Detainee Peter Ota remembered how his father suffered. “After all those years, having

worked his whole life to build a dream – having it all taken away…He died a broken

man.”

 In 1944 in Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court       the order providing for

the relocation of Japanese Americans. In       Americans acknowledged the injustice of

relocation. The United States Congress issued a formal apology and agreed to give each

survivor $20,000 as a token of the nation’s regret.

North African Campaign

 On       - three weeks after Pearl Harbor – the United States joined Britain, the Soviet

Union, and 23 other Allied nations in vowing to defeat the Axis Powers. Although the

Japanese were conquering vast areas in the Pacific, the Allied leaders decided to

concentrate, or focus, first on defeating Hitler before dealing with Japan.

 The situation in Europe was      . German forces occupied almost all of Europe and

much of North Africa. If the Germans defeated the Soviets, Germany might prove

unstoppable.

 Stalin wanted the western Allies to launch a major attack on continental Europe across

the      . Churchill, however, argued that the United States and Britain were not yet

ready to fight strong German forces in Europe. Instead he wanted to attack the edges of

Germany’s empire.

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  Roosevelt agreed, and the Allies made plans to invade      . The invasion would give

untested American troops combat experience. Also, once the Americans were in North

Africa, they would be able to help British forces in Egypt.

 The Axis forces in North Africa were led by German general Erwin Rommel, known as

the “     ” because of his success in desert warfare. In November 1942, the British

defeated Rommel at the battle of El Alamein.

 The victory prevented the Germans from capturing the Suez Canal, linking the

Mediterranean and Red Seas. Rommel’s forces, however, remained a serious threat.

 Later that year, British and American forces under American general Dwight D.

Eisenhower landed in Morocco and Algeria. Moving swiftly eastward, they joined British

forces advancing west from Egypt to close in on Rommel. The Allies drove the Germans

out of North Africa in May      .

 Allied troops then moved into southern Europe. They took the island of Sicily in the

summer of 1943 and landed on Italy’s mainland in September. Eisenhower directed the

invasion. Another American general      , and British general Bernard Montgomery

actually led the troops.

 As the Allies advanced, the Italians overthrew dictator Benito Mussolini and      .

German forces in Italy fought on but failed to stop the Allied move into central Italy. In

June 1944, the Allies finally took Rome, Italy’s capital.

 Meanwhile, the Allies launched an air war on Germany. Day and night, bombs battered

German factories and cities and killed thousands. Yet the attacks failed to crack

Germany’s       to win the war.

The Tide Turns in Europe

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  During the time of the North African campaign, the Soviets and the Germans were locked

in ferocious combat on       territory. For months the Soviet Union bore the main brunt

of Germany’s European war effort.

 After invading the Soviet Union in June 1941, German troops advanced into the

country’s interior. They began a siege of the city of       that lasted nearly 900 days. As

food ran out, thousands of people died. Still the Germans could not take the city, and in

early 1944 the siege was broken.

 German forces also attacked other Soviet cities. In 1941 the Germans tried to take      ,

the Soviet capital. Heavy losses and wintry weather slowed them, but the Germans

reached Moscow by December. When all seemed lost, the Soviets counterattacked and

forced a German retreat.

 In the spring of 1942, the Germans tried to take      , a major industrial city. No sooner

had the Germans won Stalingrad than Soviet forces surrounded the city, cutting off the

German supply lines. Cold and starving, the Germans at Stalingrad finally surrendered in

February 1943.

 After Stalingrad, the Soviets drove the Germans back hundreds of miles. The Germans

struck back the following summer, but their defeat at Stalingrad marked a major       in

the war.

 As the Soviets pushed toward Germany from the east, Allied forces under General

Eisenhower were getting ready for Operation      , the invasion of occupied Europe.

Eisenhower later wrote of the tense days of preparation: “All southern England was one

vast military camp, crowded with soldiers awaiting final word to go.”

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  On      , or      – the day of the invasion – ships carried troops and equipment across

the English Channel to the French province of      . At the same time, paratroopers

were dropped inland, east and west of the coastal beaches.

 As dawn broke, the warships in the Allied fleet let loose with a tremendous barrage of

fire. Thousands of shells rained down on the      , code-named “Utah,” “Omaha,”

“Gold,” “Sword,” and “Juno.” After wading ashore the troops faced land mines and fierce

fire from the Germans.

 Many Allied troops were hit as they stormed across the beaches to establish a foothold on

high ground. By the end of the day, nearly 35,000 American troops had landed at      ,

and another 75,000 British and Canadian troops were on shore as well. The invasion

succeeded.

 Within a few weeks, the Allies landed a million troops in France. From Normandy the

Allies pushed across France. On August 25, French and American soldiers marched

through joyful crowds and       Paris.

 Germany fought for survival as Soviet forces pushed from the east and American and

British forces from the west. The advance across France was so rapid that many believed

the war would soon end. In December of that year, however, the Germans

counterattacked along a 50-mile front in Belgium. As their troops advanced, they pushed

back the Allied lines, creating a      .

 After weeks of fighting, the Americans       the battle and headed into Germany.

 By late 1933, the Soviets had driven the Germans from Russia to Poland. By February

1945, Soviet troops were just outside Berlin. Realizing the situation was hopeless, Hitler

committed       in Berlin on April 30. Germany signed an unconditional surrender on

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 May 7, ending the war in Europe. The Allies declared May 8       for “Victory in

Europe.”

 President Roosevelt did not share in the celebration. On vacation in Warm Springs,

Georgia, Roosevelt died suddenly on April 12, 1945. Americans were greatly saddened

by the death of the man who had led them for 12 difficult years. Vice President      

became president.

The Holocaust

 As the Allies freed German-held areas, they discovered numerous instances of Nazi

cruelty. During World War II, the Nazis developed what they called “     .” Their

solution was       – wiping out an entire group of people. About 6 million Jews were

killed in what is known as the      .

 Millions of others – Slavs, Roma (Gypsies), communists, homosexuals, and people with

handicaps – were also killed, though Jews were the only group singled out for total

     .

 Ever since Hitler gained power in 1933, the Nazis had persecuted the Jews of Germany.

They first quickly deprived the Jews of many       that all Germans had long taken for

granted. In September 1935, the       removed citizenship from Jewish Germans and

banned marriage between Jews and other Germans.

 Other laws kept Jews from voting, holding public office, and employing, non-Jewish

Germans. Later Jews were banned from owning businesses and practicing law and

medicine. With no source of income, life became       for Jews in Germany.

 By the end of the decade, Nazi actions against the Jews became more violent. On the

night of November 9, 1938, the Nazis burned Jewish places of worship, destroyed Jewish

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 shops, and killed many Jews. About 30,000 Jewish men were sent to       camps, large

prison camps used to hold people for political reasons.

 This event became known as      , or the “night of the shattered glass,” because of the

Jewish shop windows that were broken by Nazi mobs.

 During World War II, the Nazis mistreated the Jews in the lands they conquered. They

forced Jews to wear a yellow,      -pointed star on their clothing. The mass killing of

Jews began when the German army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

 Special Nazi forces carried out these murders. They rounded up thousands of Jews,

shooting them and throwing them into mass graves. Josef Perl, who survived a massacre

of Czech Jews, wrote of the act: “We marched into a forest where a huge long ditch was

already dug…I could hear…a machine gun going …All of a sudden…I saw my mother

and four sisters lined up and before I had a chance to say “Mother!” they were already

dead. Somehow time stands still…But what woke me was the sight of my five nieces and

nephews being marched, and the murderers had the audacity to ask them to hold hands. I

would have been almost the next one but all of a sudden the bombers came over, we were

ordered to lay face downwards, but everyone started running and I…ran deep into the

forest.”

 Nazi troops crammed thousands more into railroad cars like cattle, depositing them in

concentration camps, such as       in Germany. Guards took the prisoners’ belongings,

shaved their heads, and tattooed camp numbers on their arms.

 Prisoners often had only a       of bread or watery soup to eat. Thousands became sick

and died.

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  In January 1942, the Nazis agreed on what they called “final solution” to destroy the

Jews. They built       camps, such as those at       and Treblinka in Poland.

 At these camps, many people died in       chambers. Others died of starvation. Still

others were victims of cruel experiments carried out by Nazi doctors. Of the estimated

1.6 million people who died at Auschwitz, about 1.3 million were Jews.

 Upon arrival at a death camp, healthy prisoners were chosen for      . The elderly

disabled, sick, and mothers and children were sent to the gas chambers, after which their

bodies were burned in giant furnaces.

 Although information about the unfolding Holocaust had reached western leaders well

before 1945, Allied forces moving through Germany and Poland after V-E Day saw the

unspeakable horrors of the camps firsthand. British soldier Peter Coombs described the

condition of the survivors in a camp: “One has to take a tour round and see their faces,

their slow staggering gait and feeble movements. The state of their minds is plainly

written on their faces, as starvation had reduced their bodies to      .”

 People around the world were stunned by this terrible result of Nazi      . Allied

governments, however, had evidence of the death camps as early as 1942. Historians

today debate why and how an event as horrifying as the Holocaust could have occurred.

They also discuss why so relatively little was done to stop it.

 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is located near the National Mall in

Washington, D.C. This memorial provides a national mark of respect for all victims of

Nazi persecution.

 In 2004 the National World War II Memorial opened on a site on the National Mall. The

Memorial is dedicated to the 16 million who served in the military during World War II,

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 the more than 400,000 who died, and the men and women who supported the war effort

on the home front.

The Pacific Front

 On December 7, 1941, the same day Japan attacked Peral Harbor, Japanese bombers

struck American airfields in the       and on the islands of Wake and Guam – key

American       in the Pacific. In the following days, the Japanese intensified their

campaign in the Pacific. They invaded Thailand and Malaya and captured Guam, Wake

Island, and Hong Kong.

 Japanese troops landed in the Philippines in mid-December and had quickly took the

capital of      . The defending forces – Filipino and American troops commanded by

American general       – were forced to retreat to the rugged Bataan Peninsula west of

Manila and the small island fortress of Corregidor.

 After months of fierce fighting, the exhausted Allied troops defending Bataan

surrendered on April 9, 1942. The forces on Corregidor held out for another month. The

Japanese forced their Bataan prisoners – many sick and near starvation- to march to a

prison camp more than       miles away. About 76,000 prisoners started out, but only

about 54,000 of those on the Bataan Death March reached the camp.

 As survivor Marion Lawton recalled: “We’d march all day, a continuous plodding along,

just trying to keep up. I always tried to stay in the middle of the column rather than on

the flanks. That way I was further away…and might avoid a…beating. I don’t know how

to explain a typical day except that it was brutal, exhausting, hot, and your feet and legs

just ached.”

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  Two months before the surrender General MacArthur left for Australia to command

Allied forces in the Pacific. MacArthur told the Filipinos, “     .”

 With Japan’s victories, American morale was low. Then in April 1942, 16 American

bombers, launched from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, bombed      . This daring raid

led by James Doolittle had little military importance, but it lifted Americans’ spirits.

 In May 1942 American warships defeated a Japanese fleet in the Battle of the      . An

even greater victory followed in June 1942. In the Battle of      , northwest of Hawaii,

the navy destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and hundreds of airplanes.

 The United States was now ready to go on the offensive against Japan. The commanders

– General MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz – adopted a strategy known as      .

This called for attacking and capturing certain key islands. The United States then used

these islands as bases for leapfrogging to others, moving ever closer to the Philippines –

and to Japan.

 Between August 1942 and February 1943, American forces engaged in a campaign for

control of      , one of the Solomon Islands. The Japanese put up stiff resistance, but

the Americans finally secured the island.

 In June 1944, American forces captured Guam and other islands nearby. Guam provided

a base for launching       on Japan. In October, American ships destroyed most of the

Japanese fleet at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.

 American forces then closed in on Japan. In March 1945, they seized the island of      

and in June the island of      . The Japanese fought fiercely to defend these islands so

near Japan. Thousands of Americans died in the battles, and many thousands more were

wounded.

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  With most of the Japanese air force and navy destroyed, American bombers pounded

Tokyo and other major cities of Japan. In desperation, the Japanese unleashed suicide

pilots known as      .

 They       planes loaded with explosives into American ships. Kamikaze pilots sank

several destroyers during the battle for Okinawa.

The End of the War

 Although the Japanese faced certain defeat, they continued to fight. Their refusal to

surrender led the United States to use a powerful new weapon: the       bomb.

 In 1939 the German-born physicist       wrote to President Roosevelt warning him that

the Nazis might try to use the energy of the atom to build “extremely powerful bombs.”

Roosevelt then organized a committee of scientists to study the issue.

 In 1941, the committee members met with British scientists who already were working

on a similar bomb. The Americans were impressed with the British research. They then

urged Roosevelt to start a program so that the U.S. could develop its own atomic bomb.

 President Roosevelt created a top-secret operation, the      . In 1942 scientists at the

University of Chicago built the world’s first nuclear reactor, a device that splits apart

atoms and releases energy. Later, another team of scientists and engineers built an atomic

bomb at a secret laboratory in      , New Mexico. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic

bomb went off in a test near Alamogordo in the New Mexico desert.

 Even before the bomb was tested, American officials began to debate how to use it. The

final decision rested with President Harry Truman. Truman had taken office after

President Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945.

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  Truman did not know the bomb existed until a       before he had to make the decision

to use it. President Truman later wrote that he “regarded the bomb as a military weapon

and never had any doubts that it should be used.”

 His advisers warned him to expect large numbers of casualties if American soldiers

invaded Japan. Truman believed it was his       as president to use every weapon

available to save American lives.

 The Allies then issued the       Declaration, warning that if Japan did not surrender, it

face “prompt and utter destruction.” The Japanese did not surrender, and Truman ordered

the use of the bomb.

 On August 6, 1945, an American       bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb

on the Japanese city of      . Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on the city

of      .

 The atomic bombs caused immense destruction. The first bomb       Hiroshima and

killed between 80,000 and 120,000 people; the Nagasaki bomb killed between 35,000

and 74,000., Thousands more were injured, and many died later from burns and      

sickness.

 Faced with such destruction, the Japanese emperor said that “the unendurable must be

endured” and ordered his government to      .

 August 15, 1945, was proclaimed       Day for “Victory over Japan.” All around

America, people expressed happiness and relief. Japan signed the formal surrender on

September 2 aboard the battleship USS Missouri. World War II had finally ended.

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  In the years immediately after the war, Allied authorities put the top Nazi and Japanese

leaders on trial. They were accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The

Allies held the trials in      , Germany, and in Tokyo.

 World War II was the most       conflict in history. More than 55 million people died

during the war; more than half of these were civilians killed by bombing, starvation,

disease, torture, and murder.

 American casualties – about 322,000 dead and 800,000 injured – were high, but light

compared with those of other nations.

 The Soviet Union suffered more than 22 million deaths. Those who survived faced the

huge task of trying to rebuild their lives and their      .

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