History Review--Short Answer: World War II March 20, 2013
1. List and identify 3 important dates in World War II:
June 6, 1944
December 7, 1941
August 9, 1945
2. Who were the Allies?
Great Britain,
US,
CA,
Soviet Union,
The countries that were fighting against the
Axis powers.
3. What does Axis Power mean and who coined that phrase?
The Axis powers are the Germans and the
Italians.
The name of the “Axis” powers was coined by
Adolf Hitler *Mussolini during World
War II
When he said that Rome and Berlin are in a
straight line, are on an axis.
4. What did Adolph Hitler do during World War I?
Adolf Hitler was a soldier during World War
I. He fought for Germany and had many near misses for death. In fact, he was in
a trench when it got gassed and lost hearing and suffered from temporary
blindness.
5. Name 5 “leaders” of World War II:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “FDR” President of
the United States of America during World War II
Adolf Hitler: Chancellor or “Fuhrer” of Germany
during World War II. Hitler is probably the most recognizable leader of World
War II. One of his famous terms is from the battle of Stalingrad were he said,
“Don’t retreat until the last man, and the last bullet.”
Winston Churchill: Prime Minister of England
during the time. He is famous for being one of the master minds that was so
successful during the planning of D-Day.
Joseph Stalin: Leader of the Russian army. He
is known for being a bad leader and sending Russia into a terrible state.
Mussolini: Head of the Italian military. He
is known for being good friends with Hitler and being one of the head leaders
of the axis powers.
6. What happened between Hitler’s Third Reich Germany and Stalin’s
Russia in 1940?
They signed the treaty saying that they would
not invade each others countries.
7. Why did the US hesitate to enter the war?
Because of isolationists. People of America
were still suffering from the depression and the devastation of World War I, or
as they called it, “The Great War” that they did not want to go into war with
Europe again.
8. Who was Rosie the Riveter and what does she represent in the
history of World War II?
She represented the “recruitment” of ordinary
housewives to come take the jobs of men in factories during World War II. These
women were very excited to be working on such projects.
9. What are 3 things people “back home” did to boost the morale of
the soldiers on the front?
Many young woman and kids joined the Red
Cross where they would raise money to send things to soldiers on the front
lines.
Also, ordinary people would send care
packages to soldiers that had some sweets and also home essentials.
Also, family members and relatives of
soldiers would send letters or V-mail which was a way of saving paper by taking
photographs of letters and sending them to soldiers.
10. What happened on Dec. 7 1941 and how did that change the war?
On December 7, 1941 the Japanese surprise
attacked the US at the naval base of Pearl Harbor Hawaii. About 2,000 civilians
were killed at Pearl Harbor. The American isolationists immediately changed
their minds here and the US declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. Since Japan and Germany were “allied” then
Germany and the axis powers had to declare war on the US making the many little
wars into World War II.
11. What are kamikazze pilots?
Kamikaze pilots are trained Japanese pilots
who are trained to kill themselves and try to create more damage when they’re
plane goes down. This is part of the reason that Pearl Harbor is so devastating
because, it created more damage and lost more lives than it could have.
12. What is a U boat?
U-boats were German submarines that were
definitely to the disadvantage of the allied. German U-boats could move very
fast, shoot torpedoes at enemies and still be completely silent. However, the
invention of radar *sonar—radar is for tracking planes was created to track German U-boats and that helped the allies a
lot.
13. What is the difference between a Jewish Ghetto and a
concentration camp?
A Jewish Ghetto is different from a
concentration camp because it didn’t harm anybody. The ghettos were more like
internment camps, where the Jews had to be away from the Germans and the
Christians but they weren’t getting killed by the dozens like they were in
concentration camps.
14. Approx. how many people were exterminated by the Third Reich
and who were they?
About 8,000,000 Jews, handicapped, gypsy,
gays, and any more “not pure race men” as Hitler said were killed in
concentration camps by the Nazi Germans.
15. What did Hitler call his last decision to exterminate all the
people in his concentration camps?
Hitler called his last decision to the
“Jewish Problem” the Final solution. This is where he sent ALL Jewish and
handicapped ect. To concentration camps and basically murdered all of them.
16. Who were the RAF and how did they influence Hilter’s decision
not to invade Great Britain?
The RAF is the British Royal Air force.
Winston Churchill’s famous line “I have never owed so much to so few.” Was to
the RAF during the Battle of Britain and the blitz. Hitler decided not to
invade England because he was so impressed and surprised with the RAF.
17. What is the Luftwaffe and what is the Blitz?
The Luftwaffe are the German Air Force that
were bombing London for the 57 consecutive nights in London killing about
40,000 people and causing many great fires throughout the large city.
18. Describe Hitler’s 3 part battle strategy and why it was so
effective, particularly early in the war:
German blitzkrieg:
Hitler was able to take so many countries
especially early in the war because of his ingenious war strategy called the
blitzkrieg.
This idea started with thousands of tanks he
would come in and shoot at the enemy with all of his tanks which cornered the
enemy, after the tanks, came the planes overhead that would come in and drop
bombs on the enemy, and then, thousands and millions of troops came in and shot
at the enemy until surrendered.
19. What happened in the Battle of Stalingrad and who “won”?
The Battle of Stalingrad which was part of
Operation Barbarossa the betrayal of Russia from Germany. Hitler was determined
not to surrender until the last man and the Last bullet. He brought in over
3,000,000 troops but the Russians were absolutely determined not to give up to
Hitler and at the end, the Russians did win and started pushing the Germans
back to Berlin. The Russians took 90,000 Germans as POW’s during Stalingrad
however, they treated them so horribly that only 5,000 came out.
20. What was the name of the operation that later became known as
“D-Day”?
Eisenhower, Churchill, and FDR originally
called D-day Operation Overlord.
21. Describe the “trick” the Allies played on the Germans prior to
the Normandy Invasion:
To make sure that the Normandy invasion was
successful, the Allies had to absolutely convince the Germans that they would
be invading at a different place then they actually were. To do this, the
Allies got help from a movie company which created a movie set of war supplies,
ammunition and thousands of troops getting ready to invade far north than the
Normandy beaches.
25. What were the names of the 5 beaches on the French coast of Normandy?
Utah and Omaha: These were the two beaches
that the US had to invade. Omaha was the worst one of all five beaches.
Gold and Juno: These were GB’s
responsibility.
And Sword: Canada took this one.
26. Why did Japan attack the US at Pearl Harbor?
Because, The US was not selling them products
that they couldn’t get because they were at war with China. Basically the US
was like, “You have to deal with this one on their own.” The US was acting like
a mother talking to their grown up child who had gotten himself/herself into a
bad situation and the mother wanted them to fix it on their own.
27. Describe 4 differences between the Pacific and European Front
of the war:
European Front: Cold, Lots of forests,
country side, not much water.
Pacific front: very hot, Lots of Jungle, Full
of Natives, Many small islands.
28. How did women and black Americans influence the war? List 2 examples:
Black Americans, like the Tuskegee Airmen
were treated much better after the war because they had proven their equality
and bravery as an American soldier.
Woman proved that they could handle doing
men’s jobs and that they could do them equally well, this helped influence
woman’s rights.
29. What happened to many Japanese Americans after the attack on
Pearl Harbor?
Many Japanese Americans, especially ones in
the West coast were put into Internment camps by the government because they
were Japanese.
30. Who were the “code talkers” and what did they do to influence
the war?
The code talkers were the Navajo and Comanche Native Americans
that were used in the Pacific and in Europe as the codes for the Americans.
They used their language because it was never written down and is very VERY
hard to learn.
31. List and describe 5 spy gadgets used
during the war: Alternate Question: Summarize what you learned about spies in WWII:
I learned that spies in World War II were
famous because they created so many cool spy gadgets and there were many
different spies. There were spy academies in Canada and in England that
specialized in saboteur and espionage. There were many spy agencies as well,
some still around today, like the US spy agency is now known as the CIA. All
spies had to masters of disguise and very good at acting. My favorite spy
stories are the stories about double agents who are spies that pretend to be
spies for other countries and give false information.
32. Why is it called the Battle of the Bulge?
Because Hitler was planning on creating a “Bulge” and split the
Allied forces, but this attempt failed and Hitler lost the battle of the bulge.
The term bulge like in a hose when you
squeeze both ends and the water in the middle is trapped and creates a bulge.
33. Describe the circumstances of Germany’s
surrender in 1945:
When Russia invaded and got Berlin Hitler knew that he had lost
the war and he and his wife committed suicide together in Berlin.
34. Why is the Battle of Iwo Jima important
and what is the iconic image associated with the victory?
The iconic image is the allied troops lifting the flag in the
morning which stated that the Allies had won.
Iwo Jima is so important because it was the
Final effort and last battle of Japan and it was the turning point in the war.
35. What is the name of the plane that
carried the atomic bomb and where did it drop it?
The “Enola Gay” is the name of the plane that dropped the little
boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 7 1945.
36. Describe the circumstances of Japan’s
surrender:
Since Japan didn’t surrender after the bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima the US decided to drop another bomb, “fat man” on
Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 which forced Japan to surrender.
37. Who is Anne Frank and why is she
remembered?
She is a young European Jew during World War II, her and her
family went into hiding when Hitler came and rounded up the Jews. She is
remembered because she kept a diary the whole time she was there.
38. What happened to Hitler?
Hitler and his wife
committed suicide before the end of the war.
39. Even though he was part of the Allies,
how does history remember Stalin and why?
History remembers Stalin equally as bad as History remembers
Mussolini or Hitler because Stalin was such a bad leader.
40. Write a paragraph answering the question
based on your knowledge, thoughts, and feelings about World War II: What does
World War II teach us about retribution, revenge, and retaliation? What lessons
can we learn? Think about this question from multiple perspectives: Germany,
Japan, Russia, United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, etc.
World War II
teaches students and adults today that revenge and retaliation just leads to
more problems we learned this when we dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki because it just caused more problems. The thing is, we just killed
civilians, just like Japan did in Pearl Harbor, and Germany did in London, just
poor civilians who were just sitting in home living their daily lifes. Every
major country in this war suffered from attacks, and each major country that
got attacked seeked revenge and got their revenge. I think that after each
country got their revenge, they learned a valuable lesson, that it did no good.
This is why so far in history, nothing this terrible has happened again and
hopefully it never will.
