9.3.3: The end of WW2 - TEXT -

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• Middelbare school
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• Leerjaar 3

AGE 9. The Time of World Wars

9.3.3 The end of World War 2

What is this lesson about?

From 1943, the tide turned. In this lesson we will look at three different theaters of war: the eastern front, the western front and the Pacific.

After the German defeat at Stalingrad, the German army was retreating. 

In the west a huge Allied army was gathering in England. On D-Day this army would cross the Channel to invade France and liberate western Europe from Nazi occupation.

In the Pacific the tide also turned. The USA had recovered from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and was now pushing the Japanese army back towards Japan, island by island.

The war would not end however, until a terrible new weapon forced the Japanese to surrender: the atomic bomb.

people in this lesson

Roosevelt

president

USA

Hitler

Führer

Germany

Eisenhower

general

USA

Stalin

Leader

USSR

Truman

president

USA

Word Duty

Words that are in bold print must be learned for a test. 

Words that are printed cursive in the texts, you just need to be able to understand & translate!

D-Day: Decision Day, June 6th 1944. The day on which Allied forces invaded Northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy. The official name for this operation was Operation Overlord

VE-Day: Victory-in-Europe Day

WORD DUTY

Important dates in this lesson:

1943:    Germans surrender at Stalingrad (Jan 31st)

             Allied invasion of Italy (Sept. 3rd)

1944:    D-Day (June 6th)

             Liberation Southern Netherlands (Sept.)

1945:    Hitler commits suicide (April 30th)

             Germany surrenders  / VE-Day (May 8th)

             Atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki (August 6th + 9th)

            Japan surrenders, end WW2 (Sept 2nd)

The Eastern Front

After the defeat at Stalingrad in february 1943, the German army was retreating.

By this time the Soviet factories were geared to maximum production - they were able to replace any tank or aircraft that was lost in battle.

The Germans, on the other hand, were not able to replace lost tanks and aircraft quickly enough. German production could not increase because the Americans and British were bombing German factories and also rail links between Germany and the USSR.

By august 1943 the Red Army had four times as many tanks as the Germans at the eastern front.

Because the Soviet Union was now an ally with the British and Americans, Stalin urged his new friends to come to his aid by attacking Hitler from the west, so Germany would face a two-front war.

Churchill and the American president Roosevelt promised to open a "Second Front" in the west soon, but they needed much time to prepare this invasion.

Meanwhile, the Red Army marched westward, driving the Germans back.

1944. Some 57,000 German prisoners were forced to march through the streets of Moscow so the Moscow people could see the "Master Race" soldiers for themselves. Most Germans would not live to see their homes ever again.

After the parade Moscow streets were cleaned to get rid of the "German filth".

Take a look at these rare historical photos

The Western Front

As early as 1942 the US commander general Eisenhower put together plans for a joint US-British attack on occupied Europe. Through 1942 and 1943 American forces built up steadily on the British mainland. President Roosevelt believed that the American priority was the war against Germany rather than the war against Japan, so 85% of US resources were targeted at Germany during the War.

In 1943, US and British forces attacked Italy from the south. Italy surrendered in september 1943, although the north was then immediately occupied by German forces.

But the main objective was still the liberation of France. A formidable task. The Germans had built strong defences all along the Atlantic coast. It was a very high risk undertaking but the start of Operation Overlord, was nonetheless fixed for 6 June 1944.

This would be D-Day, Decision Day.

The United States actually had a 'ghost army' with only one mission: to deceive the enemy tactically. During and after D-Day, they staged more than twenty operations, using inflatable tanks, sound trucks and misleading Morse Code and radio messages.

American soldiers landing on the Normandy beach in the early morning of June 6th, 1944.

From D-Day to VE-Day

On 6th June 1944, Western allied forces launched a successful invasion of Normandy in northern France. This day is known as D-Day or Decision Day. Hitler’s fears had come true: he was now fighting with a war on two fronts. Within months, the allied forces liberated France, Belgium and the southern Netherlands. As the Allies advanced the Germans put some remarkable new weapons into action. The most spectacular of these were the V-1 and V-2 rocket missiles. Although several of these "flying bombs" hit London, none of the new weapons was able to stop the Allied advance.

Eindhoven was liberated on Sept 18, 1944, but a daring attempt (Operation Market Garden) to conquer the bridges over the Rhine and liberate the northern Netherlands before winter failed.

In the spring of 1945, the British, American and Soviet forces marched on Germany. Stalin's Red Army was determined to be the first to reach Hitler's capital. On 8th May 1945, the German army finally surrendered. Knowing he was about to lose, Hitler had committed suicide eight days earlier.

The war was finally over. Europe celebrated Victory in Europe (VE-) Day.

London people celebrating the end of the war in Europe.

Japanese successes in Asia

Between December 1941 and June 1942, Japan was able to conquer most of Southeast Asia without much resistance from Western powers. The Japanese were well trained in jungle warfare and conquered the British colonies Burma, Malaysia and Singapore, the American Philippines and the Dutch Indies within six months after the attack on Pearl Harbour. In many European colonies the Japanese were initially welcomed as liberators; but soon people realised that Japanese occupation was just another form of oppression.

But when Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th 1941, the USA got involved in World War 2.

Although the Japanese had struck a heavy blow on the American navy at Pearl Harbour, they did not completely destroy the US Pacific Fleet. Therefore the Japanese organised a second surprise attack. However, this time the Americans had been able to decipher Japanese code messages, so they knew exactly when and how the Japanese would attack. The battle that took place at the Midway Islands in June 1942 would become a turning point: the Americans inflicted enough damage on the Japanese navy to prevent further attacks.

American aircraft carrier during the Battle of Midway

Japanese ZERO attack bomber used to drop torpedoes on US warships

War in the Pacific

The American marines referred to the phase in the war between 1942-1945 as ‘island hopping’: Reconquering territory island by island, they gradually moved in on Japan. As they advanced, aided by the Australians, New-Zealanders, British and Canadians, they came close enough to use bomber aircrafts. From 1944 onwards, many Japanese citizens died from the bombing of cities. The USA could focus completely on the war against Japan after Germany surrendered unconditionally on 8th May 1945.

Despite all their advances, the USA was unable to win the war. Firstly, they had learned that the Japanese would rather die fighting than surrender. It would take tens of thousands more deaths on both sides to conclude the war. 

Japanese kamikaze pilots posing in front of the camera. These specially trained suicide pilots would crash their airplane on enemy ships causing maximum damage. 

Perhaps no Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph is better known than Joe Rosenthal’s picture of six U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It was taken on Friday, Feb. 23, 1945, five days after the Marines landed on the island. The Associated Press, Rosenthal’s employer, transmitted the picture to member newspapers 17½ hours later, and it made the front pages of many Sunday papers.

Secondly, now that Germany had surrendered, the Soviet Union wanted to declare war on Japan as well. The Americans wanted to prevent this: They were afraid that the Soviet Union would spread communism in the Asian countries they liberated from Japan.

So, on 6th August 1945, the new president of the United States Harry Truman gave the order to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A second one was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. In the end, more than 200,000 people died as a result of these attacks. The Allied powers refused to accept a truce and Japan therefore unconditionally surrendered on 2nd September 1945. The Second World War was finally over.

The Enola Gay dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In this photograph are five of the aircraft's ground crew with mission commander Paul Tibbets in the center.

a Japanese survivor of the atomic bomb watches over the devastated city of Hiroshima

Read the source below.

‘GUAM, Aug. 9 – Gen. Carl A. Spaatz announced today that a second atomic bomb had been dropped, this time on the city of Nagasaki, and that crew members reported “good results”. The second use of the new and terrifying secret weapon which wiped out more than 60 per cent of the city of Hiroshima and, according to the Japanese radio, killed nearly every resident of that town, occurred at noon today, Japanese time. The target today was an important industrial and shipping area with a population of about 253,000.

The great bomb, which harnesses the power of the universe to destroy the enemy by concussion, blast and fire, was dropped on the second enemy city about seven hours after the Japanese had received a political “roundhouse punch” in the form of a declaration of war by the Soviet Union.’

Fragment from an article by W.H. Lawrence, nicknamed ‘Atomic Bill’ in The New York Times, 10th August 1945.

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