Phase II of World War II

The World Fights For Survival

Pearl Harbor (1941 - PTO)

• Japanese fleet under Yamamoto travel 3,400 miles to deliver a decisive sneak attack

• US commanders Kimmel and Short are unaware of the impending attack - controversy abounds

• Why the attack? To neutralize US power in the face of a Japanese attack deep into the South Pacific

• What is at stake? Japanese access to oil, rubber, magnesium and other commodities in British and Dutch colonies

• British stronghold at Singapore would also be reduced by the Japanese with 70,000 POWs captured

• 2,400 Americans killed and 18 vessels sunk or damaged compared to Japanese losses of under 200

• Oil tank farm and repair facilities left unscathed. Sunk vessels resurfaced.

• Nagumo: “we have awakened a sleeping giant”

Midway (PTO - 1942)

• For six months after Pearl Harbor the Japanese run wild establishing the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”

• Japanese victories at Java Sea and Coral Sea imperiled Australia and the west coast of the US

• Japanese armada steams for the Hawaiian islands in June, 1942 to square off with a 3 aircraft carrier fleet commanded by Adm. Nimitz

• 3 day battle is a devastating defeat for the Japanese as Nimitz’s forces prevail

• 3 Japanese carriers sunk (Akagi caught by US torpedo-bombers while refueling her planes on deck)

• The battle for the Pacific now swings in the US’s favor

The “Paukenschlag” (ETO <Atlantic> 1942)

• German U-boats based in Norway wreak havoc in the North Atlantic in the first six months of 1942

• From the coastline of North America to the Barents Sea Allied shipping face massacre odds

• Convoy PQ-17 an example of this • Allies turn the tide against Doenitz’s “wolf

packs” in mid-1943

• Several factors contributed to Allied victory: cracking the Enigma code machine, eliminating the mid-Atlantic air gap and greater Allied shipping productivity

El Alamein (ETO <North Africa> 1942)

• Montgomery’s Commonwealth forces (Br, Aus, NZ, Ind, SAf) defeated Rommel’s vaunted Afrika Korps

• Where: Egyptian desert sixty miles west of Alexandria

• What’s at stake: control of the Suez Canal and British access to India

• Victory turns the tide of the North African campaign just as American forces are arriving on the western coast of North Africa

Guadalcanal (PTO-1942)

• MacArthur’s island-hopping campaign begins off the eastern coast of New Guinea in August, 1942

• Vandegrift’s US Marines stage amphibious invasion on an island vital as a staging ground for future operations

• Japanese kept their forces supplied by the Tokyo Express (battle of Iron Bottom Sound)

• First clear-cut land victory for Allies over Japanese after vicious fighting

Stalingrad (ETO - 1942/43)

• Battle of epic proportions as Russians mount a “stand-or-die” defense of Stalin’s namesake city

• What’s at stake: the attempts by Paulus’ Army Group South to reach the oilfields of the Caucuses

• Barbarossa has stalled outside of Moscow and Leningrad

• Operation Blau begins in September with aerial bombardment that kills 30,000

• Ferocious street-fighting ensues as Russian general Chuikov orders his troops to “hug” the Germans

• An utterly destroyed city is fought for brick by brick. Railway station changes hands 15 times

• As November snows and cold approach, Germans hold 90% of the city but are shattered

• On November 19 a counteroffensive is begun by Russians under Zhukov

• Defying logic, Hitler forbids Paulus from removing his troops while he can still save a semblance of his army

• Estimates vary, but it appears that 350,000 Germans perished as well 100,000 of their allies (It, Rom, Hun).

• Perhaps 500,000 Russians died. Of the 840,000 civilians living in Stalingrad before the battle, 1500 remained at the end of the battle

Pearl Harbor - Battleship Row

Midway - US divebombers

El Alamein - Rommel v. Montgomery

Stalingrad - Mamayev Kurgan

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Kharkov and Kursk - ETO

• Kharkov - a German counteroffensive victory. German army still dangerous even after the epic losses at Stalingrad

• This victory sets the stage for what Hitler hopes will be the make-or-break offensive in the East - Operation Zitadelle

• Kursk - the greatest clash of armored forces in the history of warfare

• Germans penetrate deep into Soviet lines but are unable to achieve victory and lose 850 armored vehicles

• This is a defeat the Wehrmacht will not recover from

Sicily and Italy - ETO 1943

• Operations Husky and Avalanche part of Churchill’s plan to strike at the Axis’ “soft underbelly”

• Sicilian campaign would be marked by Anglo-American rivalry (Montgomery v. Patton)

• Italian campaign would be hampered by ineffective Allied leadership and determined German resistance aided by the arid, mountainous Italian landscape

Mussolini toppled

• Mussolini’s is forced from power by the effect of the Allied invasion. With the connivance of King Victor Emmanuele III, il Duce is replaced by Badoglio

• Allies place heavy symbolic importance on the capture of Rome, the campaign for the “eternal city” would be hard and bloody

• June 4, 1944 Rome is entered by the Allies, two days late D-day will occur in NW France and the Italian campaign will be relegated to secondary status

Tarawa PTO 1943

• The US island-hopping campaign moves from the Solomon islands to the Gilbert islands in the central Pacific

• Tarawa, a heavily fortified volcanic atoll, proves a formidable prize for the US Marines

• In 76 hours of fighting the Marines lose as many men as they did during the six-month Guadalcanal campaign

• Nevertheless, victory is achieved and the noose tightens around the Japanese

Kursk

Sicilian campaign

Gen. George S. Patton (USA)

Tarawa