World War II finally came to an end in August of 1945 after Japan surrendered to the United States on August 9th, 1945. This was of course after 2 atomic bombs fell onto Nagasaki and Hiroshima. By this time, FDR had died and Harry Truman took his place, ordering the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.
There is much speculation and debate over the use of the bombs on Japan. Many believe that they were used to prevent the lives of Americans and Japanese lost during the war. Others think it was a power move by Truman to show the superiority of the United States at the time against the Soviet Union. Still others think that it was more based on racial superiority of the whites vs. the Japanese and that dropping the bomb on them would not matter because they were inferior. Even then, the radiation of the bombs would leave lasting health effects for the Japanese even to this day.
Whatever the reasoning, the dropping of the Atomic Bombs is truly horrific and would change the world dramatically in the second half of the twentieth century.
Today is ironically April 20th, the day that Hitler was born. April 20th, 1889.
In 1945, Hitler ended up committing suicide 10 days after his birthday on April 30th, 1945. Two days later on May 2nd, 1945 Berlin surrendered and the war in Europe was finished.
This still left the war in the Pacific theatre to be won….
What a way to start the 56th year of your life, huh?
The Invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Overlord, was the reopening of the Western Front against Hitler’s troops during World War II. Nearly 4 years after France fell and 4 years of the Soviet Union taking the brunt of Hitler’s attack, Allied Forces launched the largest Amphibious attack on the beaches of Normandy France. Almost 160,000 troops pushed into Normandy at the beginning of the invasion and almost 3 million troops had been sent through by August of 1944.
Actual Operation Overlord footage:
Saving Private Ryan recreates the Invasion of Normandy at Omaha Beach:
This is a very touchy subject this blog and I honestly won’t be divulging into the details too much. Everybody knows about the Holocaust. All across the United States it is taught in primary and secondary schools and it something that is talked about in society so that it doesn’t happen again.
Hitler’s work camps and concentration camps did not just extend to the Jews but also extended to blacks, gypsies, gays, those with mental and physical disabilities, Communists, Socialists, other political enemies, Poles, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, dissenting clergy…. The list could honestly go on. Over 6 million people were killed.
It is reported that the governments of the United States and Great Britain knew that Hitler had these concentration camps by as early as 1942. They believed that the only way to stop these camps was to stop Hitler.
A short video on a survivor of the Holocaust.
This book is an amazing account of a survivor of the Holocaust. Some may have read it. It is a very touching and incredibly painful book. But his strength only leaves you with a greater knowledge of a first hand account.
What are all of your thoughts on the Holocaust? Or tidbits and knowledge that you know?
When learning about World War II, most people usually know details (at least some) of the European theatre. Not much is known about the Pacific or African theatre. I will admit that if I had more time, I would cover the African theatre more in depth, but I feel that the Pacific theatre has more of an impact on Americans. Cuz let’s face it, do we even really care about the African theatre? Or do we just care about what it matters and how it affects us, Americans. I figured.
Anyways, the Battle of Midway is probably the most important battle in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. I am excluding the dropping of the bombs because one, we’ll get to that later, and two, that pretty much ended the war. Now… the Battle of Midway is important for the sole reason that the United States was able to push Japan into a defensive stance on the war. After this battle, they would no longer be on the offensive. This is pretty important because the Japanese would no longer push further east to the United States in the war.
The Battle of Midway last three days, June 4th to June 7th. The United States would also permanently cripple the Japanese Navy (Remember, this was pretty much a naval battle). 307 Americans were killed to the approximate 2000 Japanese that were killed. 4 carriers, 1 cruiser, and 248 carrier aircraft were destroyed for the Japanese. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot but for the time and the area of the battle, it really is.
Clip:
Because the Battle of Midway was such a major turning point in the war, many movies and video games have been made or include the Battle of Midway. Such movies include “Storm Over the Pacific” and “Tora, Tora, Tora”. Games made about the Battle of Midway include “1943: Battle of Midway” and some various board games too.
December 7th, 1941… A day which will live in infamy….
Every American knows the story of Pearl Harbor. And how it was America’s Entry into World War II.
But here’s my question to you, the reader.
What would have happened if the United States had NOT entered the war? What would Japan have done? What would that have meant for the Pacific, European, and African Theatres of the war?
The Battle of Moscow is perhaps one of the single most important events in the first two years of World War II. Since the start of the war, this was the first battle that Hitler lost. This single battle could be pinpointed as Hitler’s loss of the war, the remaining 3 years his struggle to survive the war.
The Battle of Moscow took place in the winter of 1940 under the name of Operation Barbarossa. Before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, the two countries had a non-aggression pact, which Hitler obviously broke when he invaded Russia. The Russian Invasion took place from June 1941 until the end of the war when the Soviets pushed the Germans back into Germany. The fighting between the Russians and the Germans was incredibly fierce and each side had their advantages and disadvantages.
The Germans were definitely much more technologically advanced than the Russians. The Soviet Union had never, and Russia before World War I, had always been behind in technological advances and industrialization. The weapons and military vehicles that the Germans had were far ahead of the weapons and military vehicles that the Russians had. A second advantage that the Germans had over the Russian soldiers was that many of the countries and people that the Communists had control over were looking to be liberated by the soldiers. Many of these people were hoping that they would be freed by the Germans, but the Germans weren’t really focused on liberating the people but rather on trying to crush Russia before it turned on the Germans.
The advantage that the Russians had over the Germans was the amount of men that the country had to rely on. The population that that Russia had would help the counterattack that the Soviets would unleash on the Germans. The other advantage that the Russians had was winter clothing. When the German army finally invaded, they hit an early winter in Russia and suffered incredible casualties through starvation and hypothermia.
But because of the German Invasion of Russia and their failure to capture Moscow and defeat Stalin, the Germans would now have to fight a two front war from now on. (Remember that Britain had not fallen). This would cause Germany’s influence and victory to slowly wane until the involvement of the United States.
Linked here is a podcast by Dan Carlin, an American Historian who has a four part series on the German Invasion of Russia. Each is quite long and I know most of you won’t read it (If you even made it this far), but I hope you’ll take the time to enjoy if you are interested.
http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive
Scroll down to Ghost of the Ostfront Part I-IV. Next week will be Pearl Harbor so stay tuned.
The Battle of Britain is perhaps the first important turning point of World War II. The Battle of Britain took place in the Summer of 1940, shortly after France had fallen into the grips of the Nazi. By this time in 1940, Hitler had control of nearly all of Europe and was setting his eyes on Great Britain.
This battle plan that was written by Hitler would be known as “Operation Sea Lion.” Though in order to initiate this operation, Hitler wanted to cripple Great Britain so that he would have a better chance of taking over the country. And to do this, Hitler called in his Blitzkrieg tactic with the use of the German Luftwaffe. With this began the Battle of Britain.
The Battle of Britain was a battle that was solely waged in the air between the British Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe. The Battle itself lasted from roughly August of 1940 to November of 1940. The “Day of the Eagle” as Hitler named it, was issued August 13, 1940 and was the first offense
Throughout the battle time, Great Britain not only fought the Luftwaffe over the skies of Britain but they were also subjected to heavy bombing in primarily urban areas. London had especially been heavily bombed, the heaviest bombing in September of 1940. This heavy bombing became known a the London Blitz. Even with the heavy bombings and the battles over, the British managed to keep an upper hand over the Germans, many of their planes and pilots able to take down even more Germans. There are two distinct advantages that the British had during the war.
First, the British had the advantage of their homeland. Even though the bombings took place over England, those who were shot down in the skies over England and managed to survive were able to retreat back and fight once more. Germans that were shot down had a likelier change of being captured as they had the English Channel that separated them and the bases in which they could go back to.
The second and most distinct advantage that the British had was the Radio Direction Finder, the Royal Air Force name for the radar. The radar that had been used was able to give the British the advantage of being the air to head of the Luftwaffe nearly 100% of the time. As shown above, the British high radar was able to stretch to the coast of France, showing the Luftwaffe bases. The radar was able to show when the Luftwaffe would take off and start creating their formations for their bombings over England. This gave the British Royal Air Force the ability to get up in the air and meet the Luftwaffe for battle.
By November of 1940, Hitler kept the order for the Luftwaffe to continue bombing Britain, but his invasion of the Isles was temporarily put off at the risk of losing too many men. That and his sites were starting to set towards the East.
Though Great Britain was brought to its knees because of the Luftwaffe. But it did not mean that they were out of the war just yet. The aerial battles above Britain though deadly and scary were badass. Great Britain was able to hold their own against Germany and would eventually step up their game in 1941.
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Enjoy the video below. Actual footage of the Battle of Britain!
If you were to go out onto the American streets and ask any person on the street what the most devastating war in history is, a good amount would most likely say World War II. While many opinions do vary, it is no lie that World War II is one of the most devastating wars in history. This blog is going to cover the major events and turning points in World War II though it shall be a reader’s digest version of these major events and turning points. I will be providing resources of various kinds if anyone is actually interested in researching or enjoying the subject in depth.
Now in order to understand World War II, you have to step back in history and observe the causes that led up to World War. What events and consequences were sewn into the timeline that inevitably caused World War II? While there are many causes that led up to the war, I will only mention a few in passing.
Well the first of these causes is widely argued amongst historians. This would be the Treaty of Versailles that was signed in 1919 in Paris, France. England, France, Germany, and the United States met to negotiate, though there were many other countries there as well. But the Big Four, as they were known, paid no heed to these smaller factions. England and France were bent on making Germany pay for not only causing the war with the War Guilt Clause, but to also make Germany so weak as a country that it would not rise up again. This is how the Weimar Republic was formed. President Woodrow Wilson brought his 14 Points with him, but England and France were not interested in listening to them. Especially Prime Minister George Clemenceau of France. He said quote, “Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!” Very few of the 14 Points were accepted by England and France, one of the being the creation of the League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations which would inevitably fail. Because of the harsh negotiations and limits of the Treaty, Germany was ultimately left humiliated and crumbled as the century continued on.
A second major cause of World War II is the rise of Totalitarianism throughout Europe. This is case in point with the rise of the Nationalist Socialist Party in Germany (The Nazis and Hitler)
the rise of Fascism in Italy (Mussolini)
and the Totalitarian Communist regime in the Soviet Union (Stalin.)
While I won’t delve into too much detail about the rise of each Totalitarian rule, an interesting fact is that each of these Totalitarian governments had their own secret police and by the late 1930s were the dominant form of government in each of their respective countries through fear and oppression. With the restoration of the Weimar Republic to Germany and the rebuilding of the German economy, the German people started to emerge once more as a dominant country. The Germans were able to do this by embezzling money that was sent from the United States via the Dawes Plan of 1924, which lent Germany money so they could repay England and France, who in turn owed money back to the United States. This money became embezzled as the Germans stopped paying reparations.
A third cause was the Great Depression that affected the entire world. With the lack of jobs after the economy plummeted, the appeal of steady jobs under the Totalitarian governments such as Nazism were just too good to pass up. Especially when you were trying to feed a country.
One of the last major causes leading into World War II was the act of Appeasement by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Advocating “Peace in Our Time”, Chamberlain tried to appease to Hitler by giving him permission to take back the Sudetenland that resided in Czechoslovakia, which was full of Germans. The policy of appeasement only held off the war by a year or so, but essentially gave Hitler the idea that he could invade neighboring lands while England and France would idly stand by.
And there you have it. Some major cause of World War II, Reader’s Digest version. Nothing that would fill a monograph, but just a little backwater information to get the gears grinding and thoughts provoked. Please feel free to leave feedback or your thoughts in the comment section. Thanks for listening.
