World War II Essay, Research Paper

In the early forenoon hours of September 1, 1939, the German ground forcess marched into Poland. On September 3 the British and Gallic surprised Hitler by declaring war on Germany, but they had no programs for rendering active aid to the Poles.

The Battle of Britain

In the summer of 1940, Hitler dominated Europe from the North Cape to the Pyrenees. His one staying active enemy? Britain, under a new premier curate, Winston Churchill? vowed to go on contending. Whether it could was questionable. The British ground forces had left most of its arms on the beaches at Dunkirk. Stalin was in no temper to dispute Hitler. The U.S. , shocked by the autumn of France, began the first peacetime muster in its history and greatly increased its military budget, but public sentiment, although sympathetic to Britain, was against acquiring into the war.

The Germans hoped to repress the British by hungering them out. In June 1940 they undertook the Battle of the Atlantic, utilizing pigboat warfare to cut the British abroad line of lifes. The Germans now had pigboat bases in Norway and France. At the beginning the Germans had merely 28 pigboats, but more were being built? plenty to maintain Britain in danger until the spring of 1943 and to transport on the conflict for months thenceforth.

Invasion was the expeditious manner to complete off Britain, but that meant traversing the English Channel ; Hitler would non put on the line it unless the British air force could be neutralized foremost. As a consequence, the Battle of Britain was fought in the air, non on the beaches. In August 1940 the Germans launched daylight foraies against ports and landing fields and in September against inland metropoliss. The aim was to pull out the British combatants and destruct them. The Germans failed to think with a new device, radio detection and ranging, which greatly increased the British combatants & # 8217 ; effectivity. Because their ain losingss were excessively high, the Germans had to exchange to dark bombing at the terminal of September. Between so and May 1941 they made 71 major foraies on London and 56 on other metropoliss, but the harm they wrought was excessively indiscriminate to be militarily decisive. On September 17, 1940, Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely, thereby professing licking in the Battle of Britain.

U.S. Aid to Britain

The U.S. abandoned rigorous neutrality in the European war and approached a confrontation with Japan in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. U.S. and British conferences, begun in January 1941, determined a basic scheme for the event of a U.S. entry into the war, viz. , that both would focus on their attempt on Germany, go forthing Japan, if need be, to be dealt with later.

In March 1941 the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act and appropriated an initial $ 7 billion to impart or rent arms and other assistance to any states the president might denominate. By this means the U.S. hoped to guarantee triumph over the Axis without affecting its ain military personnels. By late summer of 1941, nevertheless, the U.S. was in a province of undeclared war with Germany. In July, U.S. Marines were stationed in Iceland, which had been occupied by the British in May 1940, and thenceforth the U.S. Navy took over the undertaking of escorting convoys in the Waterss west of Iceland. In September President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized ships on convoy responsibility to assail Axis war vass.

The German Invasion of the USSR

The war & # 8217 ; s most monolithic brush began on the forenoon of June 22, 1941, when somewhat more than 3 million German military personnels invaded the USSR. Although German readyings had been seeable for months and had been talked about openly among the diplomats in Moscow, the Soviet forces were taken by surprise. Stalin, his assurance in the state & # 8217 ; s military capableness shaken by the Finnish war, had refused to let any counteractivity for fright of arousing the Germans. Furthermore, the Soviet military leading had concluded that blitzkrieg, as it had been practiced in Poland and France, would non be possible on the graduated table of a Soviet-German war ; both sides would hence restrict themselves for the first several hebdomads at least to sparring along the frontier. The Soviet ground forces had 2.9 million military personnels on the western boundary line and outnumbered the Germans by two to one in armored combat vehicles and by two or three to one in aircraft. Many of its armored combat vehicles and aircraft were older types, but some of the armored combat vehicles, peculiarly the later celebrated T-34s, were far superior to any the Germans had. Large Numberss of the aircraft were destroyed on the land in the first twenty-four hours, nevertheless, and their armored combat vehicles, like those of the Gallic, were scattered among the foot, where they could non be effectual against the German panzer groups. The foot was foremost ordered to counterstrike, which was impossible, and so prohibit to withdraw, which ensured their sweeping devastation or gaining control.

The Beginning of the War in the Pacific

The looking imminency of a Soviet licking in the summer and autumn of 1941 had created quandary for Japan and the U.S. The Nipponese idea they so had the best chance to prehend the crude oil and other resources of Southeast Asia and the next islands ; on the other manus, they knew they could non win the war with the U.S. that would likely result. The U.S. authorities wanted to halt Nipponese enlargement but doubted whether the American people would be willing to travel to war to make so. Furthermore, the U.S. did non desire to acquire embroiled in a war with Japan while it faced the grim possibility of being entirely in the universe with a exultant Germany. After the oil trade stoppage, the Japanese, besides under the force per unit area of clip, resolved to travel in Southeast Asia and the nearby islands.

Pearl Harbor

Until December 1941 the Nipponese leading pursued two classs: They tried to acquire the oil trade stoppage lifted on footings that would still allow them take the district they wanted, and they prepared for war. The U.S. demanded that Japan withdraw from China and Indochina, but would really probably have settled for a nominal backdown and a promise non to take more district. After he became Japan & # 8217 ; s Prime Minister in mid-October, General Tojo Hideki set November 29 as the last twenty-four hours on which Japan would accept a colony without war. Tojo & # 8217 ; s deadline, which was kept secret, meant that war was practically certain.

The Nipponese ground forces and naval forces had, in fact, devised a war program in which they had great assurance. They proposed to do fast expanses into Burma, Malaya, the East Indies, and the Philippines and, at the same clip, set up a defensive margin in the cardinal and southwest Pacific. They expected the United States to declare war but non to be willing to contend long or hard plenty to win. Their greatest concern was the U.S. Pacific Fleet, based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. If it reacted rapidly, it could scramble their really tight timetable. As insurance, the Nipponese navy undertook to stultify the Pacific Fleet by a surprise air onslaught.

A few proceedingss before 8 AM on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Nipponese carrier-based aeroplanes struck Pearl Harbor. In a foray lasting less than two hours, they sank four battlewagons and damaged four more. The U.S. governments had broken the Nipponese diplomatic codification and knew an onslaught was at hand. A warning had been sent from Washington, but, owing to holds in transmittal, it arrived after the foray had begun. In one shot, the Nipponese naval forcess scored a superb success? and assured the Axis licking in World War II. The Nipponese onslaught brought the U.S. into the war on December 8? and brought it in determined to contend to the coating. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on December 11.

Air Raids on Germany

As a preliminary to the postponed cross-channel onslaught, the British and Americans decided at Casablanca to open a strategic air ( bombing ) offense against Germany. In this case they agreed on timing but non on method. The British, as a consequence of detering experience with daytime bombing early in the war, had built their heavy bombers, the Lancasters and Halifaxes, for dark bombardment, which meant country bombardment. The Americans believed their B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators were armed and armored to a great extent plenty and were fitted with sufficiently accurate bombsights to wing by daytime and work stoppage pinpoint marks. The difference was resolved by allowing each state behavior its ain offense in its ain manner and naming the consequence round-the-clock bombardment. The British method was exemplified by four incendiary bomb foraies on Hamburg in late July 1943, in which much of the metropolis was burned out and 50,000 people died. American losingss of planes and crews increased aggressively as the bombers penetrated deeper into Germany. After early October 1943, when work stoppages at ball-bearing workss in Schweinfurt incurred about 25 per centum losingss, the daylight offense had to be curtailed until long-range combatants became available.

The Invasion of Italy

Three American, one Canadian, and three British divisions landed on Sicily on July 10. They pushed across the island from beachheads on the south seashore in five hebdomads, against four Italian and two German divisions, and overcame the last Axis opposition on August 17. In the interim, Mussolini had been stripped of power on July 25, and the Italian authorities had entered into dialogues that resulted in an cease-fire signed in secret on September 3 and made public on September 8.

On September 3 elements of Montgomery & # 8217 ; s British Eighth Army crossed the Strait of Messina from Sicily to the toe of the Italian boot. The U.S. Fifth Army, under General Mark W. Clark, staged a landing near Salerno on September 9 ; and by October 12, the British and Americans had a reasonably solid line across the peninsula from the Volturno River, North of Naples, to Termoli on the Adriatic seashore. The Italian resignation brought small military benefit to the Allies, and by the terminal of the twelvemonth, the Germans stopped them on the Gustav line about 100 kilometers ( about 60 myocardial infarction ) South of Rome. A landing at Anzio on January 22, 1944, failed to agitate the Gustav line, which was solidly anchored on the Liri River and Monte Cassino.

The Plot Against Hitler

A group of German officers and civilians concluded in July that acquiring rid of Hitler offered the last leftover opportunity to stop the war before it swept onto German dirt from two waies. On July 20 they tried to kill him by puting a bomb in his central office in East Prussia. The bomb exploded, injuring a figure of officers? several fatally? but bring downing merely minor hurts on Hitler. Afterward, the Gestapo hunted down everyone suspected of complicity in the secret plan. One of the suspects was Rommel, who committed self-destruction. Hitler emerged from the blackwash effort more secure in his power than of all time before.

The Liberation of France

As of July 24 the Americans and British were still confined in the Normandy beachhead, which they had expanded slightly to take in Saint-L? and Caen. Bradley began the jailbreak the following twenty-four hours with an onslaught South from St-L? . Thereafter, the forepart expanded quickly, and Eisenhower regrouped his forces. Montgomery took over the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army. Bradley assumed bid of a freshly activated Twelfth Army Group dwelling of U.S. First and Third ground forcess under General Courtney

H. Hodges and General George S. Patton.

After the Americans had turned east from Avranches in the first hebdomad of August, a pocket developed around the German Fifth Panzer and Seventh armies west of Falaise. The Germans held out until August 20 but so retreated across the Seine. On August 25 the Americans, in concurrence with General Charles de Gaulle & # 8217 ; s Free French and Resistance forces, liberated Paris.

Meanwhile, on August 15, American and Gallic forces had landed on the southern seashore of France E of Marseille and were forcing north along the vale of the Rh? ne River. They made contact with Bradley & # 8217 ; s forces near Dijon in the 2nd hebdomad of September.

Allied Advances in Italy

( 1944 ) . The Italian run passed into the shadow of Overlord in the summer of 1944. Clark & # 8217 ; s Fifth Army, consisting Gallic and Poles every bit good as Americans, took Monte Cassino on May 18. A jailbreak from the Anzio beachhead five yearss subsequently forced the Germans to abandon the whole Gustav line, and the Fifth Army entered Rome, an unfastened metropolis since June 4. The progress went good for some distance North of Rome, but it was bound to lose impulse because U.S. and Gallic divisions would shortly be withdrawn for the invasion of southern France. After taking Ancona on the E and Firenze on the West seashore in the 2nd hebdomad of August, the Allies were at the German Gothic line. An violative late in the month demolished the Gothic line but failed in three months to transport through to the Po River vale and was stopped for the winter in the mountains.

The Air War in Europe

( 1944 ) . The chief action against Germany during the autumn of 1944 was in the air. Escorted by long- scope combatants, peculiarly P-51 Mustangs, U.S. bombers hit industrial marks by twenty-four hours, while the German metropoliss crumbled under British bombardment by dark. Hitler had responded by pelting England, get downing in June, with V-1 winging bombs and in September with V-2 projectiles ; but the best launching sites, those in northwesterly France and in Belgium, were lost in October. The effects of the Allied strategic bombardment were less distinct than had been expected. The bombardment did non destruct civilian morale, and German combatant plane and armoured vehicle production reached their wartime extremums in the 2nd half of 1944. On the other manus, Fe and steel end product dropped by half between September and December, and continued bombardment of the man-made oil workss, coupled with loss of the Ploiesti oil Fieldss in Romania, badly limited the fuel that would be available for the armored combat vehicles and planes coming off the assembly lines.

The shortening of the foreparts on the E and the West and the late twelvemonth letup in the land contending gave Hitler one more opportunity to make a modesty of about 25 divisions. He resolved to utilize them offensively against the British and Americans by cutting across Belgium to Antwerp in an action similar to the expanse through the Ardennes that had brought the British and Gallic to disaster at Dunkirk in May 1940.

The Final Battles in Europe

Hitler & # 8217 ; s last, weak hope, strengthened briefly by Roosevelt & # 8217 ; s decease on April 12, was for a falling out between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. The East-West confederation was, in fact, strained, but the interruption would non come in clip to profit Nazi Germany. On April 14 and 16 the U.S. Fifth and British Eighth ground forcess launched onslaughts that brought them to the Po River in a hebdomad. The Soviet progress toward Berlin began on April 16. The U.S. Seventh Army captured Nuremberg, the site of Nazi party mass meetings in the 1930s, on April 20. Four yearss subsequently Soviet ground forcess closed a ring around Berlin. The following twenty-four hours the Soviet Fifth Guards Army and the U.S. First Army made contact at Torgau on the Elbe River nor’-east of Leipzig, and Germany was split into two parts. In the last hebdomad of the month, organized opposition against the Americans and British practically ceased, but the German military personnels confronting east battled urgently to avoid falling into Soviet imprisonment.

The German Resignation

Hitler decided to expect the terminal in Berlin, where he could still pull strings what was left of the bid setup. Most of his political and military associates chose to go forth the capital for topographic points in north and south Germany probably to be out of the Soviet range. On the afternoon of April 30 Hitler committed self-destruction in his Berlin sand trap. As his last important official act, he named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz to win him as head of province.

Doenitz, who had been loyal to Hitler, had no class unfastened to him other than resignation. His representative, General Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditioned resignation of all German armed forces at Eisenhower & # 8217 ; s central office in Reims early on May 7. By so the German forces in Italy had already surrendered ( on May 2 ) , as had those in Holland, north Germany, and Denmark ( May 4 ) . The U.S. and British authoritiess declared May 8 V-E ( Victory in Europe ) Day. The full unconditioned resignation took consequence at one minute yesteryear midnight after a 2nd sign language in Berlin with Soviet engagement.

The Defeat of Japan

Although Japan & # 8217 ; s place was hopeless by early 1945, an early terminal to the war was non in sight. The Nipponese naval forcess would non be able to come out in force once more, but the majority of the ground forces was integral and was deployed in the place islands and China. The Nipponese gave a foretaste of what was yet in shop by fall backing to kamikaze ( Japanese, & # 8220 ; divine wind & # 8221 ; ) onslaughts, or suicide air onslaughts, during the combat for Luzon in the Philippines. On January 4-13, 1945, rapidly trained kamikaze pilots winging disused planes had sunk 17 U.S. ships and damaged 50.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The following onslaught was scheduled for Kyushu in November 1945. An easy success seemed improbable. The Japanese had fought practically to the last adult male on Iwo Jima, and 100s of soldiers and civilians had jumped off drops at the southern terminal of Okinawa instead than give up. Kamikaze planes had sunk 15 naval vass and damaged 200 off Okinawa.

The Kyushu landing was ne’er made. Throughout the war, the U.S. authorities and the British, believing Germany was making the same, had maintained a monolithic scientific and industrial undertaking to develop an atomic bomb. The main ingredients, fissile U and Pu, had non been available in sufficient measure before the war in Europe ended. The first bomb was exploded in a trial at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945.

Two more bombs had been built, and the possibility arose of utilizing them to convert the Nipponese to give up. President Harry S. Truman decided to let the bombs to be dropped because, he said, he believed they might salvage 1000s of American lives. For maximal psychological impact, they were used in speedy sequence, one over Hiroshima on August 6, the other over Nagasaki on August 9. These metropoliss had non antecedently been bombed, and therefore the bombs & # 8217 ; harm could be accurately assessed. U.S. estimates put the figure killed in Hiroshima at 66,000 to 78,000 and in Nagasaki at 39,000. Nipponese estimations gave a combined sum of 240,000. The USSR declared war on Japan on August 8 and invaded Manchuria the following twenty-four hours.

The Nipponese Resignation

On August 14 Japan announced its resignation, which was non rather unconditioned because the Allies had agreed to let the state to maintain its emperor. The formal sign language took topographic point on September 2 in Tokyo Bay aboard the battlewagon Missouri. The Allied deputation was headed by General MacArthur, who became the military governor of occupied Japan.

Cost of the War

World War II & # 8217 ; s basic statistics qualify it as by far the greatest war in history in footings of homo and material resources expended. In all, 61 states with 1.7 billion people, three-quarterss of the universe & # 8217 ; s population, took portion. A sum of 110 million individuals were mobilized for military service, more than half of those by three states: the USSR ( 22-30 million ) , Germany ( 17 million ) , and the United States ( 16 million ) . For the major participants the largest Numberss on responsibility at any one clip were as follows: USSR ( 12,500,000 ) ; U.S. ( 12,245,000 ) ; Germany ( 10,938,000 ) ; British Empire and Commonwealth ( 8,720,000 ) ; Japan ( 7,193,000 ) ; and China ( 5,000,000 ) .

Most statistics on the war are merely estimations. The war & # 8217 ; s huge and helter-skelter expanse made unvarying record maintaining impossible. Some authoritiess lost control of the information, and some resorted to pull stringsing it for political grounds.

A unsmooth consensus has been reached on the entire cost of the war. In footings of money spent, it has been put at more than $ 1 trillion, which makes it more expensive than all other wars combined. The human cost, non including more than 5 million Jews killed in the Holocaust ( see Holocaust: Consequences of the Holocaust ) who were indirect victims of the war, is estimated to hold been 55 million dead? 25 million of those military and 30 million civilian.

Economic Statisticss

The U.S. spent the most money on the war, an estimated $ 341 billion, including $ 50 billion for lend-lease supplies, of which $ 31 billion went to Britain, $ 11 billion to the Soviet Union, $ 5 billion to China, and $ 3 billion to 35 other states. Germany was following, with $ 272 billion ; followed by the Soviet Union, $ 192 billion ; and so Britain, $ 120 billion ; Italy, $ 94 billion ; and Japan, $ 56 billion. Except for the U.S. , nevertheless, and some of the less militarily active Allies, the money spent does non come near to being the war & # 8217 ; s true cost. The Soviet authorities has calculated that the USSR lost 30 per centum of its national wealth, while Nazi exactions and plundering were of incalculable sums in the occupied states. The full cost to Japan has been estimated at $ 562 billion. In Germany, bombardment and barrage had produced 4 billion coppers m ( 5 billion coppers yd ) of debris.

Human Losingss

The human cost of the war fell heaviest on the USSR, for which the functionary entire, military and civilian, is given as more than 20 million killed. The Allied military and civilian losingss were 44 million ; those of the Axis, 11 million. The military deceases on both sides in Europe numbered 19 million and in the war against Japan, 6 million. The U.S. , which had no important civilian losingss, sustained 292,131 conflict deceases and 115,187 deceases from other causes. The highest Numberss of deceases, military and civilian, were as follows: USSR more than 13,000,000 military and 7,000,000 civilian ; China 3,500,000 and 10,000,000 ; Germany 3,500,000 and 3,800,000 ; Poland 120,000 and 5,300,000 ; Japan 1,700,000 and 380,000 ; Yugoslavia 300,000 and 1,300,000 ; Romania 200,000 and 465,000 ; France 250,000 and 360,000 ; British Empire and Commonwealth 452,000 and 60,000 ; Italy 330,000 and 80,000 ; Hungary 120,000 and 280,000 ; and Czechoslovakia 10,000 and 330,000.

Possibly the most important casualty over the long term was the universe balance of power. Britain, France, Germany, and Japan ceased to be great powers in the traditional military sense, go forthing merely two, the United States and the Soviet Union.

& # 8220 ; World War II, & # 8221 ; Microsoft? Encarta? 96 Encyclopedia. ? 1993-1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. ? Funk & A ; Wagnalls Corporation. All rights reserved.