546 CHAPTER 11 World War II

September 1939• Germany invades

Poland• Great Britain and

France declare waron Germany

April 1940• Blitzkrieg against

Denmark andNorway

May 1940• Attacks against

Netherlands,Belgium, France

August 1940• Air attack

against Britain

December 1941• Japan attacks

Pearl Harbor,Philippines, andDutch East Indies

• United Statesenters war

Spring 1942• United States wins

battles of the Coral Seaand Midway

February 1943• Germans surrender

at Stalingrad

June 1944• Rome falls

to Allies• D-Day, June 6

May 1945• Germany

surrenders

June 1940• France

surrenders

April 1941• Greece and

Yugoslaviaare captured

June 1941• Hitler invades

Soviet Union

Spring 1942• Japan controls most

of Southeast Asia

Fall 1942• Germans attack

Stalingrad• Britain and United States

invade North Africa

May 1943• German and Italian

troops surrender inFrench North Africa

July 1943• Soviets defeat

Germans atBattle of Kursk

August 1944• Paris is

liberated

April 1945• Soviets enter Berlin• Hitler and

Mussolini die

March 1945• Germany is

invadedAugust 1945• United States

drops atomicbombs on Japan

• Japan surrenders

World War II: Attack and Counterattack

Axis attacks and victoriesAllied attacks and victories

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946

The time line above traces the major events of WorldWar II.

1. Identifying How much time elapsed fromFrance’s defeat until Paris was liberated?

2. Cause and Effect What were the effects of threedramatic events in 1939, 1941, and 1945?

The Allies Advance

The Allied forces stopped the advance of theGermans and the Japanese.

Reading Connection Have you ever had to fight obsta-cles to achieve a goal? Read to find out how the Allied forcesfought the Germans and the Japanese to work for the uncondi-tional surrender of Germany and Japan.

The entry of the Americans into the war created anew coalition, the Grand Alliance: the United States,Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Ever since theRussian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union hadbeen relatively isolated from the West. Now they hadto come together to fight a common enemy, Nazi Ger-many. To overcome mutual suspicions, the Alliesagreed to stress military operations and ignore polit-ical differences.

At the beginning of 1943, the Allies agreed to fightuntil the Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—surrendered unconditionally. The unconditional sur-render principle, which required the Axis nations tosurrender without any favorable condition,cemented the Grand Alliance by making it nearlyimpossible for Hitler to divide his foes.

The European Theater Defeat was far fromHitler’s mind at the beginning of 1942. As Japaneseforces advanced into Southeast Asia and the Pacific,Hitler continued fighting the war in Europe againstthe armies of Britain and the Soviet Union.

Until late 1942, it appeared that the Germansmight still prevail on the battlefield. In North Africa,Erwin Rommel, whose daring exploits and willing-ness to use trickery to outwit his foes had earned himthe nickname “Desert Fox,” commanded the Reich’sAfrika Korps. Rommel’s clever tactics helped theGermans break through the British defenses in Egyptand advance toward Alexandria. Meanwhile, arenewed German offensive in the Soviet Union led tothe capture of the entire Crimea in the spring of 1942.In August, Hitler confidently boasted:

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547547CHAPTER 11 World War IICHAPTER 19 World War II 547CHAPTER 5 Rome and the Rise of Christianity 547CHAPTER 5 Rome and the Rise of Christianity

Women as Spies in World War IIFor thousands of years, governments have relied on

spies to gather information about their enemies. Untilthe twentieth century, most spies were men. DuringWorld War II, however, many women became active inthe world of espionage.

Yoshiko Kawashima was born in China but raised inJapan. In 1932, she was sent to China by Japaneseauthorities to gather information for the invasion ofChina. Disguised as a young man, Kawashima was anactive and effective spy until her arrest by the Chinesein 1945. The Chinese news agency announced that “along-sought-for beauty in male costume was arrestedtoday in Beijing.” She was executed soon after herarrest.

Hekmath Fathmy was an Egyptian dancer. Her hatredof the British, who had occupied Egypt, caused her tobecome a spy for the Germans. Fathmy sang anddanced for British troops in the Kit Kat Club, a nightclubin Cairo. After shows, she took British officers to herhouseboat on the banks of the Nile. Any informationshe was able to obtain from her guests was passed onto John Eppler, a German spy in Cairo. Eventually, shewas caught, but she served only a year in prison for herspying activities.

Violette Szabo of French/Eng-lish background became a spyafter her husband died fightingthe Germans in North Africa.She joined Special OperationsExecutive, an arm of BritishIntelligence, and was sent toFrance several times. In August1944, she parachuted intoFrance to spy on the Germans.Caught by Gestapo forces atSalon La Tour, she was torturedand then shipped to Ravens-bruck, a women’s concentrationcamp near Berlin. She was exe-cuted there in April 1945.

! Violette Szabo spiedfor the Allies to avengeher husband’s death.

People have different motives for becoming spies.List several motives that might draw someone toespionage. Do you think the motives are different inpeacetime? Investigate current espionage activitiesusing the Internet or library. What various methodsdo governments use today to gather intelligence?

on the Caucasus and its oil fields. Hitler, however,decided that Stalingrad, a major industrial center onthe Volga, should be taken first.

In perhaps the most terrible battle of the war,between November 1942 and February 2, 1943, theSoviets launched a counterattack. German troopswere stopped, then encircled, and supply lines werecut off, all in frigid winter conditions. The Germanswere forced to surrender at Stalingrad. The entireGerman Sixth Army, considered the best of the Ger-man troops, was lost.

By February 1943, German forces in Russia wereback to their positions of June 1942. By the spring of1943, even Hitler knew that the Germans would notdefeat the Soviet Union.

The Asian Theater In 1942, the tide of battle in theEast changed dramatically. In the Battle of the CoralSea on May 7 and 8, 1942, American naval forcesstopped the Japanese advance and saved Australiafrom the threat of invasion.

“As the next step, we are going to advance southof the Caucasus and then help the rebels in Iran andIraq against the English. Another thrust will bedirected along the Caspian Sea toward Afghanistanand India. Then the English will run out of oil. In twoyears we’ll be on the borders of India. Twenty tothirty elite German divisions will do. Then the BritishEmpire will collapse.”

This would be Hitler’s last optimistic outburst. By the fall of 1942, the war had turned against the Germans.

In North Africa, British forces had stopped Rom-mel’s troops at El Alamein (EL A•luh•MAYN) in thesummer of 1942. The Germans then retreated backacross the desert. In November 1942, British andAmerican forces invaded French North Africa. Theyforced the German and Italian troops there to surren-der in May 1943.

On the Eastern Front, after the capture of theCrimea, Hitler’s generals wanted him to concentrate

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bypass others, “island hopping” up to Japan. After aseries of bitter engagements in the waters off theSolomon Islands from August to November 1942,Japanese fortunes were fading.

Summarizing Why was the Germanassault on Stalingrad a crushing defeat for the Germans?

Last Years of the War

Allied victories forced Germany and Japan tosurrender unconditionally.

Reading Connection In wartime, does the end justifythe means? Read to learn about President Truman’s decision touse the atomic bomb.

By the beginning of 1943, the tide of battle hadturned against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Axis forcesin Tunisia surrendered on May 13, 1943. The Allies

Reading Check

548 CHAPTER 11 World War II

N

S

EW

Mercator projection1,000 kilometers0

1,000 miles0

150°W180°150°E120°E90°E

30°N

0°

TROPIC OF CAPRICORN

TROPIC OF CANCER

EQUATOR

Guadalcanal(Aug. 1942–Feb. 1943)

Tarawa(Nov. 1943)

New Britain(Dec. 1944)

Coral Sea(May 1942)

(Oct. 1944)

(July–Aug. 1944)

Eastern Solomons (Aug. 1942)Santa Cruz (Oct. 1942)

(Feb.–March 1945)

(Aug. 1945)

(April–June 1945)

Saipan (June–July 1944)Bataan(Jan.–April 1942)

Java Sea(Feb. 1942)

Wake Island(Dec. 1941)

Pearl Harbor(Dec. 1941)

(June 1942)

(Aug. 1945)

Okinawa

Leyte Gulf

Philippine Sea(June 1944)

PaCIFicOcean

indianOcean

CoralSea

1943

1942

1943

1944

1944

1945

1945

1944

1945

19451945

1945

1945

1944

1943

1942

1942

1944

KOREA

MONGOLIA

SOVIET UNION

CHINA

BURMAINDIA

THAILAND

MALAYA

FRENCHINDOCHINA

DUTCH EAST INDIES

JAPAN

MANCHUKUO

Formosa

PhilippineIslands

KurilIslands

Aleutian IslandsSakhalin(Karafuto)

Iwo Jima

Guam

Mariana Islands

FijiNewCaledonia

NewHebrides

New GuineaSolomon Islands

HawaiianIslands

Midway Island

Marshall IslandsHainan

Sumatra Borneo Celebes

Java

SARAWAK

Corregidor

Shanghai Hiroshima

TokyoNagasaki

HongKong

World War II in Asia and the Pacific, 1941–1945

“Island hopping,” the Allied strategy in Asia, focused moreon the Pacific islands instead of the Asian mainland.

1. Interpreting Maps What was the approximate dis-tance from Japan to its farthest point of control?

2. Applying Geography Skills Compare this map to themaps in the chapter on the war in Europe. Then analyzethe effects of geographic factors on the major events inthe two different theaters of war.

Japan and Japanese-controlled area, 1942Maximum extent of Japanese control, 1942

Major Allied air operation

Major battle or attack

Conventional bombing

Atomic bombing

Allied offensive

The turning point of the war in Asia came on June 4, at the Battle of Midway Island. U.S. planesdestroyed four attacking Japanese aircraft carriers.The United States defeated the Japanese navy andestablished naval superiority in the Pacific.

By the fall of 1942, Allied forces in Asia were gath-ering for two operations. One, commanded by U.S.general Douglas MacArthur, would move into thePhilippines through New Guinea and the SouthPacific Islands. The other would move across thePacific with a combination of U.S. Army, Marine, andNavy attacks on Japanese-held islands. The policywas to capture some Japanese-held islands and

0536-0573 C11SE-867855 3/3/05 9:37 AM Page 548

then crossed the Mediterranean and carried the warto Italy, an area that Winston Churchill had calledthe “soft underbelly” of Europe. After taking Sicily,Allied troops began an invasion of mainland Italy inSeptember.

The European Theater After the fall of Sicily, Mus-solini was removed from office and placed underarrest by Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy. A new Ital-ian government offered to surrender to the Alliedforces. However, Mussolini was liberated by the Ger-mans in a daring raid and then set up as the head of apuppet German state in northern Italy. At the sametime, German troops moved in and occupied much ofItaly.

The Germans set up effective new defensive linesin the hills south of Rome. The Allied advance up theItalian Peninsula turned into a painstaking affair withvery heavy casualties. Rome did not fall to the Alliesuntil June 4, 1944. By that time, the Italian war hadassumed a secondary role as the Allied forces openedtheir long-awaited “second front” in western Europe.

Since the autumn of 1943, the Allies had beenplanning an invasion of France from Great Britain,across the English Channel. Finally, on June 6, 1944(D-Day), Allied forces under U.S. general Dwight D.Eisenhower landed on the beaches of Normandy inhistory’s greatest naval invasion. The Allies foughttheir way past underwater mines, barbed wire, andhorrible machine-gun fire. There was heavy Germanresistance even though the Germans thought the bat-tle was a diversion and the real invasion would occurelsewhere. Their slow response enabled the Allied

forces to set up a beachhead. Within three months,the Allies had landed two million men and a half mil-lion vehicles. Allied forces then pushed inland andbroke through German defensive lines.

After the breakout, Allied troops moved south andeast. In Paris, resistance fighters rose up against theoccupying Germans. The Allies liberated Paris by theend of August. In March 1945, they crossed the RhineRiver and advanced into Germany. At the end ofApril 1945, Allied armies in northern Germanymoved toward the Elbe River, where they linked upwith the Soviets.

The Soviets had come a long way since the Battleof Stalingrad in 1943. In the summer of 1943, Hitlergambled on taking the offensive using newly devel-oped heavy tanks. German forces were soundlydefeated by the Soviets at the Battle of Kursk (July 5to 12), the greatest tank battle of World War II.

Soviet forces now began a steady advance west-ward. They had reoccupied Ukraine by the end of1943 and moved into the Baltic states by the begin-ning of 1944. Advancing along a northern front,Soviet troops occupied Warsaw in January 1945 andentered Berlin in April. Meanwhile, Soviet troops,along a southern front, swept through Hungary,Romania, and Bulgaria.

By January 1945, Adolf Hitler had moved into abunker 55 feet (almost 17 m) under the city of Berlinto direct the final stages of the war. In his final polit-ical testament, Hitler, consistent to the end in his anti-Semitism, blamed the world’s Jews for the war. Hewrote, “Above all I charge the leaders of the nationand those under them to scrupulous observance of

Winston Churchill1874–1965British prime minister

Winston Churchill was Great Britain’s wartime leader. At the beginning of thewar, Churchill had already had a long political career. He had advocated a hard-line policy toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s. On May 10, 1940, he becameBritish prime minister.

Churchill was confident that he could guide Britain to ultimate victory. “I thought I knew a great deal about it all,” he later wrote, “and I was sure Ishould not fail.” Churchill proved to be an inspiring leader who rallied the Britishpeople with stirring speeches: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight onthe landing grounds, in the fields, in the streets, and in the hills. We shall never sur-render.” Time magazine designated Churchill the Man of the Year in 1940 and namedhim the Man of the Half Century in 1950.

549CHAPTER 11 World War IICORBIS

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the laws of race and to merciless opposition to theuniversal poisoner of all peoples, internationalJewry.”

Hitler committed suicide on April 30, two days afterMussolini had been shot by Italian partisans, or resist-ance fighters. On May 7, 1945, German commanderssurrendered. The war in Europe was finally over.

The Asian Theater The war in Asia continued.Beginning in 1943, U.S. forces had gone on the offen-sive and advanced, slowly at times, across the Pacific.As Allied military power drew closer to the mainJapanese islands in the first months of 1945, Harry S.Truman, who had become president on the death ofRoosevelt in April, had a difficult decision to make.

Should he use newly developed atomic weapons tobring the war to an end or find another way to defeatthe Japanese forces?

Using atomic weapons would, Truman hoped,enable the United States to avoid an invasion ofJapan. The Japanese had made extensive preparationsto defend their homeland. Truman and his advisershad become convinced that American troops wouldsuffer heavy casualties if they invaded Japan. At thetime, however, only two bombs were available, andno one knew how effective they would be.

Truman decided to use the bombs. The first bombwas dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima onAugust 6. Three days later, a second bomb wasdropped on Nagasaki. Both cities were leveled.Thousands of people died immediately, and thou-sands more died later from radiation. Emperor Hiro-hito now stepped in and forced the Japanese militaryleaders to surrender unconditionally, which they didon August 14.

World War II was finally over. Seventeen millionhad died in battle. Perhaps 20 million civilians hadperished as well. Some estimates place total losses at50 million.

Evaluating Why is the invasion ofNormandy considered one of history’s greatest naval invasions?

Reading Check

550 CHAPTER 11 World War II

Battle Deaths in World War IICountryUSSRGermanyYugoslaviaPolandRomaniaUnited States United Kingdom FranceHungaryFinlandItalyGreeceCanada

Battle Deaths 7,500,0003,500,000

410,000320,000300,000292,000245,000210,000140,00082,00077,00074,00037,000

Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: blitzkrieg, isola-

tionism, neutrality, indefinite, partisan.

2. People Identify: Franklin D. Roosevelt,Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill,Harry S. Truman.

3. Places Locate: Stalingrad, MidwayIsland, Normandy, Hiroshima.

Reviewing Big Ideas4. Explain Hitler’s strategy of attacking

the Soviet Union. Why did his delay inlaunching the attack ultimately con-tribute to the Soviet victory over theGermans?

Critical Thinking5. Evaluating How

might the Allied demand for uncondi-tional surrender have helped Hitlermaintain control over Germany?

6. Sequencing Information Using a chartlike the one below, place the events ofWorld War II in chronological order.

Analyzing Visuals7. Examine the photo on page 543 show-

ing the destruction caused by the Luft-waffe’s bombing raids on London.Explain how this strategy of Hitler’shurt, rather than helped, Germany’sefforts.

CA HR 3

8. Descriptive Writing Imagine youlived in California during World WarII. Write an essay about your expec-tations of a Japanese invasion of Cal-ifornia. You can choose to believethat an invasion was possible orimpossible. CA 10WA2.1

Year Country Event1939

For help with the concepts in this section of Glencoe WorldHistory—Modern Times, go to andclick on Study Central.

wh.mt.glencoe.com

Study CentralHISTORY

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