1. WWII divided into two periods
– Hitler and Axis Domination
Allies on the Offensive

2. Major Turning Points during WWII
Stalingrad, November, 1942
El Alamein, Summer 1942
Battle of the Coral Sea, May 1942
Midway, June, July 1943

3. World War II – Victory for the United Nations (1939-1945)
May 1940, France out of the War – Vichy France
Battle of Britain – an obvious strategy would have been for a landing, but the Germans had made no preparations for amphibious warfare
The decision was then made by Hitler and Air Marshall Goring to do the job solely with air power

4. Two Main Phases to the Battle of Britain
August and September 1940, daylight bombing raids to wipe out merchant convoys, airports and fighter planes
Almost a success for the Germans, but losses were so high that on September 17 Hitler postponed any invasion
Shift in German strategy to bombing British cities
Winston Churchill; -- “The nations finest hour”
Air attacks continued until 1942, but the aerial battle of Britain was over

9. Equally Critical was the Battle of the Atlantic
Importance of convoys getting through to Britain
After the sinking of the Bismarck the British controlled the ocean’s surface, the Germans beneath the waters with their submarines

12. The fateful decision to invade Russia – Spring, 1941
The idea that Russia could be conquered by winter
Russia would add considerable lebensraum or space to the German Reich
The plan almost worked
Millions of Russians captured or killed
But when winter closed in, neither Leningrad nor Moscow was captured
Between December 1941 and May 1942 the German army in Russia literally froze to death

16. U.S. Enters WWII
American government took steps to freeze Japanese credits in the U.S. to halt access of raw materials – summer and autumn of 1941
Force Japan to withdraw from China
Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, a “day of infamy”
Because of treaty with Japan, Germany declared war on America on December 11, 1941

17. Japan had many initial advances
Philippines
Guam
Wake Island
Malaya
Indonesia
Borneo

20. The last two years of the war the Axis was on the defensive
Attack on Germany and Italy came from three directions
By the Russians from the east
By the British, French and Americans from the South and West

26. Finishing the War in the Pacific
“Island Hopping”
Tarawa
Eniwetok
Guam
Okinawa
Iwo Jima
China Theater
Larger Islands – Solomons, New Guinea,Phillippines

27. The Sudden End – the Manhattan Project
Hiroshima and Nagaski, August 6 and 9, 1945
September 2, 1945 Japanese Surrender, Tokyo Bay