1. Battles that made the difference
Turning Points of WWII
Battles that made the difference

2. Hitler on the Move Lebensraum was an idea that motivated expansion
When Hitler starts taking territories Chamberlain (British) urged use of appeasement
Hitler takes the Rhineland
Takes Austria with Anschluss
Takes the Sudetenland with Munich Agreement
Makes a Non-Aggression pact with the Soviet Union
Invades Poland Sept. 1939
Blitzkrieg warfare

3. Fighting in Eastern Europe
Hitler invades the Soviet Union
In ‘41 Hitler launched an invasion of the Soviet Union and pushed east but never scored any major victories because of the Stalin’s scorched earth policy
Stalin knew that he could not stand up directly to Hitler’s forces so he pushed deeper into the USSR and burned the cities he abandoned
By ‘42 Hitler hoped to invade the USSR past the Ukraine and take Stalingrad but was held up in the Crimea by Mussolini

4. Stalingrad Battle of Stalingrad
Hitler leaves later then he wanted in Nov. of ‘42 and pushes towards Stalingrad along the Volga River
Hitler destroys the city but the Soviets were given the “Not a Step Back” order by Stalin and used bombed out factories as defensive positions and fought
Eventually Hitler’s general Paulus was forced to surrender since they were out of supplies and many of their soldiers had starved in Feb. of ‘43

5. Fighting in the Pacific
Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941
Caused in reaction to American assistance via Lend Lease Act of ‘41 and assistance to China in Indo-China
Japanese generals concerned that they needed to push into the United States but Hidekei Tojo pulls them back and only angers the Americans
Americans began to fight back but knew that they needed to destroy the air craft carriers of the Japanese in order to control the Pacific
America had been able to decode the Japanese messages but the Japanese could not figure our the “code talkers” language

6. Battle of Midway June ‘42 Battle of Midway
After decoding information that gave Americans the location of Japan’s 4 main aircraft carriers Americans move our forces north and wait until the planes have left the carriers vulnerable to attack
Our planes get lost and find the carriers in shifts with our two first waves being entirely destroyed
Third wave destroys all 4 carriers giving the Americans the advantage in the Pacific
Douglas MacArthur uses “island hopping” to move closer to Japan for an eventual invasion

7. Fighting in the Leyte Gulf Oct 1944
Fighting took place in the Leyte Gulf around the Philippine Islands
America takes the advantage fighting in jungle warfare and mostly naval attacks
Japanese start using kamikaze pilots
America destroys more than 500 planes, 3 battleships and 4 aircraft carriers

8. Iwo Jima and Okinawa Iwo Jima was a small island but heavily guarded
Good strategic outpost for American bombers close to Japan
Difficult terrain and heavily guarded
More than 6000 Americans are killed with over Japanese dead
Battle of Okinawa
April 1945,
Almost 2000 kamikaze attacks
Almost 8000 Americans died and Japanese

9. D-Day D-Day (Dooms Day) June 6th, 1944
After much debate Stalin and FDR decide that they should send their troops through the beaches of Normandy, France and retake France
Dwight D. Eisenhower leads the American forces onto the beaches in a stunning amphibious assault and retakes parts of France.
Rather than just using battleships to attack from a distance small boats send wave after wave of soldiers onto the beaches and planes drop off men via parachute.
This battle was seen as the turning point for the Western side of Europe since Allied forces controlled the beaches and could then bring more troops (2 million)

10. End of the War with a bang
Harry S. Truman who replaced FDR decides to use the nuke
The Manhattan project was a code for the development of nuclear arms.
We had successfully tested one in early ‘45 but were uncertain of its long term affects on its victims.
After firebombing Tokyo and then destroying the majority of 67 different cities we decide to drop one on Japan before someone else uses one on us.

11. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 6 we drop a nuke on Hiroshima
August 9 we drop one on Nagasaki
August 14th the Japanese surrender
Was it necessary? Was this the right call?