WW2

• The second world war was the biggest most destructive bloodiest war in history
• Locations where the war was fought

  • China
  • France
  • Hawaii
  • Iceland
  • Somalia
  • Sri Lanka
  • The Arctic
  • The Antarctic
• The war was fought in trenches, on horseback, in the air, under the seas, and for the first time ever in space and with nuclear weapons
• World War II changed the world
• The European Empires of Britain, France, Holland and others never recovered
• The rest of the 20th century would be dominated by the superpowers the USA and the Soviet Union
• In Asia, the war led eventually to the victory of the Chinese Communist party
• The war also caused the partition of Korea into two zones and the birth of India as an independent country
• Causes of World War II

  • Desire for Empire
  • Desire for territory
  • Desire for power
  • Desire for wealth and resources
• The Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) had spent the 1930s expanding their Empires
• Japan and China had been locked in a huge struggle since 1937
• The USA was dragged into the Pacific region war in December 1941 when Japan attacked the American Navy in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
• Europeans, Canadians, Australians, Indians and anyone else in the European Empires count the start of the war from September 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland
• Germany and Japan were catastrophically defeated and occupied in 1945
• Adolf Hitler


  • He had seized power in Germany, done away with democracy, was a dictator, had started the persecution of political opponents, Jews and other minorities, aimed to expand Germany and seize back territory lost after World War I
• In 1938, Hitler seized Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, but wanted more, dreaming of a vast German Empire
• Hitler made a deal with Joseph Stalin in Russia to invade and split Poland between them
• Britain and France declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939
• What happened after the invasion of Poland

  1. Germany and the Soviets divided up Poland

  2. The British and French launched a little invasion of Western Germany but withdrew

  3. The Soviets invaded Finland but were defeated

  4. German submarines and ships tried to destroy Britain's trade and cut off supplies

  5. The British sank the German Cruiser Admiral Graf in the Battle of the River Plate
• In Britain, more people were killed in road traffic accidents due to blackouts than members of the Armed Forces were killed in combat at this time
• What happened in April 1940

  1. Both the Allies and the Germans decided to invade Norway to secure its resources

  2. The Germans conquered Denmark and invaded Norway, forcing the Allies to evacuate
• This was very embarrassing for the British and French allies, leading to the collapse of the British government and the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister
• What happened when the Germans launched the invasion of Western Europe

  1. The Germans used tanks, aircraft and vehicles to surge through enemy territory, surrounding and surprising the Allies

  2. The Allies retreated to Dunkirk, where the British Navy evacuated over 340,000 Allied soldiers
• After Dunkirk, Germany dominated Western and Central Europe
• What happened next


  1. Hitler told his army to draw up plans to invade Britain, while using the Luftwaffe to try and force Britain to the negotiating table

  2. This led to the Battle of Britain, where the RAF proved tenacious and defeated the German bombing raids
• By the middle of September 1940, it was clear that the Germans had been defeated in the air
• What happened in the Mediterranean

  1. The British seized Italian Ethiopia, but the fighting in Libya and Egypt proved much tougher

  2. The Italian invasion of Greece at the end of 1940 was going badly wrong, so Hitler invaded Southeast Europe to bail them out
• What happened in 1941

  1. Hitler launched the most massive invasion in history, Operation Barbarossa, against the Soviet Union

  2. The Soviets were completely outclassed at first, but ferocious resistance and the harsh winter stopped the German advance on Moscow

  3. Meanwhile, Japan decided to strike first and attack the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor
• The stage was set for a long, terrible struggle between the Axis and the Allies
• The Soviets had retreated but they hadn't collapsed, they were still in the fight
• Japan was struggling to win its War in China, they needed raw materials like rubber and oil which could be found in Southeast Asia
• Japan thought the United States would stop them from invading Southeast Asia territories, so they decided to strike first and knock out the American Navy in the Pacific
• Six Japanese aircraft carriers headed for Hawaii

  Early December 1941
• The Japanese struck, bombs and Torpedoes rained down on the US Pacific Fleet headquarters at Pearl Harbor


  7th of December 1941
• Eight battleships were sunk or damaged, 2,500 Americans were killed
• President Roosevelt called it a day of infamy and declared war on Japan
• Adolf Hitler then declared war on America, the USA was in the war with both Japan and Germany
• The Japanese invaded British controlled Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines within months
• 1942 would be the decisive year
• The Japanese continued to expand across Asia and the Pacific, capturing Burma and arriving at the gates of India