History Review: WWII

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.