Thursday, May 20, 2010

WH II Honors: 20 May 2010

Prayer
Current Events:
On Tuesday's election, Rand Paul states: ''We Have Come To Take Our Government Back.''



And, a bit of recent history, as the TEA Party movement developed over the past year.

Arlen Specter and Kathleen Sebilius, Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2 August 2009, as addressed by constituents.



The Chapter 18 Test is pushed back from Friday until Monday (there are no Quizzes for Ch. 18, only the one Test). Be sure to consider the Chapter 18 Test Study Page.

Those students who need to take the Make-Up Chapter 17 Section 3 Quiz may do so. Other students who need to make up the earlier Quizzes should have done so already; they are available.

Chapter 19: World War II, 1939–1945

Section 1 Paths to War

Section 2 The Course of World War II

Section 3 The New Order and the Holocaust

Section 4 The Home Front and the Aftermath of the War


The German Path to War

The First Steps



Hitler Remilitarizes Germany




New Alliances

Union with Austria

Demands and Appeasement


Great Britain and France React

Hitler and the Soviets



Reading Check

Identifying

Where did Hitler believe he could find more "living space" to expand Germany?

The Japanese Path to War

When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the Japanese saw a chance to grab European possessions in Southeast Asia. The rich resources of the region, including oil, rubber, and tin, would be of immense value in fighting its war against the Chinese.

In 1940, Japan advanced into French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies. To stop Japanese aggression, the United States banned the sale of war materials, such as iron, steel, and oil to Japan. Japanese leaders saw this move as an attempt to interfere in Japan’s sphere of influence.

Asian Holocaust - Asia-Pacific theatre of war, World War II, 1:07

This short clip highlights the human scale of the tragedy in the Second World War Asia-Pacific theatre. Between 1931-1945, Japanese Imperial Forces invaded and occupied parts of China, Manchukuo, Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), New Guinea, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), British Malaya, Singapore, Burma, Borneo, American-occupied Philippines. This clip is part of a project on www.asianholocaust.org to gather resources and information to commemorate the Asian and Allied victims of this epic conflict.



Japan and the United States held talks to ease the growing tension. But extreme militarists, such as General Tojo Hideki, hoped to expand Japan’s empire, and the United States was interfering with their plans.

War with China

The New Asian Order

Reading Check

Explaining

Why did Japan want to establish a New Order in East Asia?
Preview:

Section 2 The Course of World War II

German forces swept through northern Europe early in the war and set up the Vichy government in France. German air attacks on Great Britain resulted in fierce British retaliation. In the east, harsh weather and a resolute Soviet Union defeated an invading German army. The Japanese conquered the Pacific but miscalculated when they attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The United States surprised Japan by abandoning its neutrality and entering the war to retake the Pacific. By the end of 1943, the tide had turned against Germany, Italy, and Japan. After the invasion of Normandy, the Allies liberated Paris and defeated Germany. U.S. President Harry Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin met at Potsdam, Germany, to plan the post-war world. The war in Asia continued until the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing massive casualties and bringing Japan's surrender.

World War Two : Europe and North Africa 1939 - 1945 Map, 5:34


Europe At War

Note Taking: Recognize Sequence Sequence events as you read in a flowchart.


On September 1, 1939, a week after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, German forces invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

British Declaration Of War - Radio Broadcast - 3 Sept 1939, 3:04



The devastation of World War I and the awareness of the destructive power of modern technology made the idea of more fighting unbearable. Unfortunately, the war proved to be even more horrendous than anyone had imagined.

"Germany's ability to seize the initiative so completely was rather surprising at first glance, given how badly its military was handicapped until the early 1930s (Boot, pp. 220 ff)."

1939 Blitzkrieg - The Taking of Poland, 3:36

This clip is composed by shots filmed in Gdynia, Gdansk, Westerplatte, Battle of Bzura and Battle of Mokra. At the end of the video Warsaw surrenders to the Germans. Music score added in 2007 by ROMANO-ARCHIVES.


Sept. 1, 1939: Wehrmacht Puts the Blitz in Krieg

1939: Germany invades Poland, starting the second European war in a generation and introducing the world to a new kind of warfare: blitzkrieg.

This form of attack, which helped the Germans obliterate the Poles in three weeks and the French in only six, relies on rapid mobility and the coordination of massed armor and infantry, with fighter planes and dive bombers providing air support. It also depends on the element of surprise, one reason Nazi Germany never declared war prior to invading an enemy.

The concept of blitzkrieg was a matter of adapting 20th-century technology -- especially the tank, the airplane and the radio -- to the age-old tactics of mobile warfare. The Germans were not alone in exploring these possibilities -- military thinkers like Britain's Basil Liddell Hart and France's Charles de Gaulle also wrote extensively on the subject during the interwar years -- but conditions within the German army, and inside Germany itself, made for a more receptive audience.

Heinz Guderian is the acknowledged father of the blitzkrieg. Guderian was a signals officer during World War I, but he studied tank tactics in the early '20s and became a proselytizer for armored warfare. He later published a study, Achtung Panzer!, that amounted to a blueprint of German blitzkrieg tactics for the next war.

Adolf Hitler, meanwhile, was in the process of rearming the country when he attended a war-gaming exercise that combined tanks and motorized infantry. Hitler was impressed by the swiftness and the striking power, and he told Guderian -- who was running the exercise -- that this was the army he meant to have.

The tank is the blitzkrieg's decisive weapon. Tactically, the key is to attack en masse rather than committing tanks piecemeal, in an infantry support role, which is what the French did. In Germany, this philosophy led to the creation of the panzer divisions, the world's first truly armored units.

Guderian, though only a colonel, was given command of the 2nd Panzer Division in 1935. As a general in World War II, Guderian commanded the XIX Panzer Corps during the Polish and French campaigns and, later, the Second Panzer Army in Russia. He also served as inspector general of panzer troops and, finally, as chief of the army's general staff.

The classic blitzkrieg attack unfolds like this:

* Air strikes, rather than artillery, open the attack, hitting at key targets such as enemy airfields, communications centers, rail lines, main roads, supply depots and troop concentrations. Early in the war, the Ju-87 "Stuka" dive bomber was heavily employed in this role.
* Artillery zeros in on those points in the enemy line selected for the armored breakthrough.
* When the barrage lifts, massed armor attacks those points (Schwerpunkte in German), tearing gaps in the enemy's line. Tanks, supported by motorized infantry, achieve the breakthrough, driving deep into the enemy's rear areas without stopping to consolidate gains or engage troops on the flanks. The point is to disrupt communications, paralyze command structure and destroy the enemy's ability to mount a coordinated counterattack.
* Infantry divisions follow up the breakthrough, encircling and mopping up enemy resistance, shoring up the flanks and consolidating the conquered territory.

Success is achieved through surprise and speed, which keeps the enemy off balance. Maneuvering is coordinated through the use of radio, which was used so extensively by the Germans that individual tanks carried their own equipment. The French, by comparison, hardly used radio at all. The French High Command was not even connected by radio to units in the field. Instead, it dispatched orders by motorcycle courier from its headquarters outside of Paris.

Incidentally, the German Wehrmacht never officially used the word blitzkrieg -- literally, "lightning war" -- though it did appear in several prewar German military publications. It came into popular use after turning up in Time magazine's coverage of the Polish invasion.

Cf. Boot, War Made New

All You Need To Know About The Stuka Dive Bomber, 5:00



Stuka Dive Bomber Cf. http://www.vibrationdata.com/Stuka.wav


Janina Sulkowska and a German plane of the Blitzkrieg

“It was 10:30 in the morning and I was helping my mother and a servant girl with bags and baskets as they set out for the market. . . . Suddenly the high-pitch scream of diving planes caused everyone to freeze. . . . Countless explosions shook our house followed by the rat-tat-tat of strafing machine guns. We could only stare at each other in horror. Later reports would confirm that several German Stukas had screamed out of a blue sky and . . . dropped several bombs along the main street—and then returned to strafe the market. The carnage was terrible.”

—Janina Sulkowska, Krzemieniec, Poland, September 12, 1939

On September 1, 1939, Nazi forces stormed into Poland, revealing the enormous power of Hitler’s blitzkrieg, or “lightning war.” The blitzkrieg utilized improved tank and airpower technology to strike a devastating blow against the enemy. First, the Luftwaffe, or German air force, bombed airfields, factories, towns, and cities, and screaming dive bombers fired on troops and civilians. Then, fast-moving tanks and troop transports pushed their way into the defending Polish army, encircling whole divisions of troops and forcing them to surrender.

Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka"

While Germany attacked from the west, Stalin’s forces invaded from the east, grabbing lands promised to them under the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Within a month, Poland ceased to exist. Because of Poland’s location and the speed of the attacks, Britain and France could do nothing to help beyond declaring war on Germany.

Hitler passed the winter without much further action. Stalin’s armies, however, forced the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to agree to host bases for the Soviet military. Soviet forces also seized part of Finland, which put up stiff but unsuccessful resistance.

Hitler's Early Victories
Dunkirk to the Fall of France

Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/launch_ani_fall_france_campaign.shtml

Images of Dunkirk, 2:56

Images of the Dunkirk evacuation, code named Operation Dynamo it took place from may 26 to June 4 1940. In nine days, more than three hundred thousand (338,226) soldiers — 218,226 British and 120,000 French were rescued by a hastily assembled fleet of about seven hundred boats. These craft included the famous "Little Ships of Dunkirk These small craft ferried troops from the beaches to larger ships waiting offshore.



BBC Production, an animation about Dunkirk

Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/wwtwo_movies/index_embed.shtml

During that first winter, the French hunkered down behind the Maginot Line. Britain sent troops to wait with them. Some reporters referred to this quiet time as the “phony war.” Then, in April 1940, Hitler launched a blitzkrieg against Norway and Denmark, both of which soon fell. Next, his forces slammed into the Netherlands and Belgium.

In May, German forces surprised the French and British by attacking through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, an area that was considered invasion proof. Bypassing the Maginot Line, German troops poured into France. Retreating British forces were soon trapped between the Nazi army and the English Channel. In a desperate gamble, the British sent all available naval vessels, merchant ships, and even fishing and pleasure boats across the channel to pluck stranded troops off the beaches of Dunkirk. Despite German air attacks, the improvised armada ferried more than 300,000 troops to safety in Britain. This heroic rescue raised British morale.

Vocabulary Builder
available—(uh vayl uh bul) adj. ready for use; at hand

Meanwhile, German forces headed south toward Paris. Italy declared war on France and attacked from the south. Overrun and demoralized, France surrendered. On June 22, 1940, Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender documents in the same railroad car in which Germany had signed the armistice ending World War I. Following the surrender, Germany occupied northern France. In the south, the Germans set up a “puppet state,” with its capital at Vichy (vee shee).

Some French officers escaped to England and set up a government-in-exile. Led by Charles de Gaulle, these “free French” worked to liberate their homeland. Within France, resistance fighters used guerrilla tactics against German forces.

The Battle of Britain

From the movie, "The Battle of Britain," 5:36



With the fall of France, Britain stood alone in Western Europe. Hitler was sure that the British would sue for peace. But Winston Churchill, who had replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, had other plans. Faced with this defiance, Hitler made plans for Operation Sea Lion—the invasion of Britain. In preparation for the invasion, he launched massive air strikes against the island nation.

As stated by their new Prime Minister:

“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

—Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940

Beginning in August 1940, German bombers began a daily bombardment of England’s southern coast. For a month, Britain’s Royal Air Force valiantly battled the Luftwaffe. Then, the Germans changed their tactics. Instead of bombing military targets in the south, they began to bomb London and other cities.

World War 2 audio clips are linked to contemporary images. The clips include key speeches, eye-witness reports and some of the most evocative sounds of the War. There is an emphasis on the experiences of British children.

2. An air raid siren sounds the warning, :39

3. Children evacuated on 1/9/1939, 1:08

5. Evacuees from Manchester talk about their experiences, 2:03

7. Children from 'host' families near Manchester describe their experiences, :30

8. Churchill: 'This was their finest hour,' 1:41

Churchill states: "the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation."

24. A teacher explains how to put gas masks on, 1:13

Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/history/worldwar2audioclipslibrary.shtml

Germany Launches the Blitz
German bombers first appeared over London late on September 7, 1940. All through the night, relays of aircraft showered high explosives and firebombs on the sprawling capital. The bombing continued for 57 nights in a row and then sporadically until the next May. These bombing attacks on London and other British cities are known as “the blitz.” Much of London was destroyed, and thousands of people lost their lives.

London did not break under the blitz. Defiantly, Parliament continued to meet. Citizens carried on their daily lives, seeking protection in shelters and then emerging to resume their routines when the all-clear sounded. Even the British king and queen chose to support Londoners by joining them in bomb shelters rather than fleeing to the countryside.

German planes continued to bomb London and other cities off and on until May 1941. But contrary to Hitler’s hopes, the Luftwaffe could not gain air superiority over Britain, and British morale was not destroyed. In fact, the bombing only made the British more determined to turn back the enemy. Operation Sea Lion was a failure.

Attack on the Soviet Union

Hitler announces invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941), 1:30

German Wartime Newsreel: Music: "Les Preludes" by Franz Liszt



After the failure in Britain, Hitler turned his military might to a new target—the Soviet Union. The decision to invade the Soviet Union helped relieve Britain. It also proved to be one of Hitler’s costliest mistakes.

In June 1941, Hitler nullified the Nazi-Soviet Pact by invading the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, a plan which took its name from the medieval Germanic leader, Frederick Barbarossa. Hitler made his motives clear. “If I had the Ural Mountains with their incalculable store of treasures in raw materials,” he declared, “Siberia with its vast forests, and the Ukraine with its tremendous wheat fields, Germany under National Socialist leadership would swim in plenty.” He also wanted to crush communism in Europe and defeat his powerful rival, Stalin.

Vocabulary Builder
nullified—(nul uh fyd) vt. made invalid

Hitler unleashed a new blitzkrieg in the Soviet Union. About three million German soldiers invaded. The Germans caught Stalin unprepared. His army was still suffering from the purges that had wiped out many of its top officers.

The Soviets lost two and a half million soldiers trying to fend off the invaders. As they were forced back, Soviet troops destroyed factories and farm equipment and burned crops to keep them out of enemy hands. But they could not stop the German war machine. By autumn, the Nazis had smashed deep into the Soviet Union and were poised to take Moscow and Leningrad (present-day St. Petersburg).

There, however, the German advance stalled. Like Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812, Hitler’s forces were not prepared for the fury of “General Winter.” By early December, temperatures plunged to −40°F (−4°C). Thousands of German soldiers froze to death.

The Soviets, meanwhile, suffered appalling hardships. In September 1941, the two-and-a-half-year siege of Leningrad began. Food was rationed to two pieces of bread a day. Desperate Leningraders ate almost anything. For example, they boiled wallpaper scraped off walls because its paste was said to contain potato flour.

Although more than a million Leningraders died during the siege, the city did not fall to the Germans. Hoping to gain some relief for his exhausted people, Stalin urged Britain to open a second front in Western Europe. Although Churchill could not offer much real help, the two powers did agree to work together.

p. 594

Reading Check

Identifying

Where did Hitler believe he could find more "living space" to expand Germany?

Japan At War

Cf.:

Pearl Harbor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, starring Jon Voight, 5:23



Pearl Harbor, 2:48
<>


More than just a significant military battle in world history, the events at Pearl Harbor awakened the local military and civilian residents to the character of war.

December 7, 1941

Losses, United States 2,390, Japan, 64

Personnel Wounded

United States, 1,178, Japan, unknown

Ships, Sunk or Beached, United States, 12, Japan, 5

Damaged, United States, 9, Japan, 0

Aircraft Destroyed, United States, 164, Japan, 29

Aircraft Damaged, United States, 159, Japan, 74

Figures are subject to further review
All U.S. Ships, except Arizona, Utah, and Oklahoma, were salvaged and later saw action.


Attack Map - Remembering Pearl Harbor at the National Geographic
website.

Pearl Harbor Remembered: The Day
Propaganda posters began to appear in early 1942, as the country prepared for war. One of the first, created soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, declared "Remember Dec. 7th!" As the war continued, the cry changed to "Remember Pearl Harbor." The Oregonian (of Portland) is generally credited with this phrase that became the rallying call of a nation at war.

Original text of the President's speech showing his last minute corrections (page 1 shown).


Many Americans payed an enormous price in the Pacific War; here is a poster from the Mystic Seaport, Connecticut Museum. Five Irish brothers lost at sea in the Solomon Islands, (collection, photo taken summer 2009).


The Japanese in China

Since 1937, the Japanese had been trying to expand into Asia by taking over China. Although the Japanese occupied much of eastern China, the Chinese refused to surrender. The occupying Japanese treated the Chinese brutally. Below, Japanese soldiers load Chinese civilians onto trucks to take them to an execution ground during the sacking of Nanjing in 1937.

Japanese forces took control across Asia and the Pacific. Their self-proclaimed mission was to help Asians escape Western colonial rule. In fact, the real goal was a Japanese empire in Asia. The Japanese invaders treated the Chinese, Filipinos, Malaysians, and other conquered people with great brutality, killing and torturing civilians throughout East and Southeast Asia. The occupiers seized food crops, destroyed cities and towns, and made local people into slave laborers. Whatever welcome the Japanese had first met as “liberators” was soon turned to hatred. In the Philippines, Indochina, and elsewhere, nationalist groups waged guerrilla warfare against the Japanese invaders.

p. 599, Geography Skills, #1-2

p. 600, Reading Check

Describing

By the spring of 1942, which territories did Japan control?

The Allies Advance
The European Theater

Rommel, The Desert Fox, Montgomery, El Alamein, 3:39



Stalingrad, 1:16



Stalingrad: Current evaluation of the Bloodiest Battle in History, 3:12



The Asian Theater

MacArthur, Leyte Landing, 1:22



p. 603, Reading Check

Summarizing

Why was the German assault on Stalingrad a crushing defeat for the Germans?

Last Years of the War

The European Theater

Saving Private Ryan, the "I'm a school teacher" (from PA scene), 3:27

(screening only 2:07 on to omit the language)



Saving Private Ryan - Opening Scene - D-Day Omaha Beach, 5:34



People in History

Winston Churchill

The Asian Theater

Hiroshima: Dropping the Bomb, 4:36

Hear first-hand accounts from the air and ground, re-telling every memory from the day the world first witnessed the horrors of atomic warfare.



p. 604, Reading Check

Identifying

What was the "second front" that the Allies opened in Western Europe?

Section 3 The New Order and the Holocaust
To further their war effort and Hitler's plans for Aryan expansion, the Nazis forced millions of people to resettle as forced laborers. No aspect of the Nazi New Order was more terrifying than the deliberate attempt to exterminate the Jews. As part of the Nazis' Final Solution, Jews were locked into cramped, unsanitary ghettos or forced to dig their own mass graves before being killed. When this proved too slow for the Nazis, they transported Europe's Jews to death camps where they were worked to death or sent to die in gas chambers. The Nazis killed between five and six million Jews and nine to ten million non-Jews. In Asia, Japan showed little respect for the conquered peoples in its effort to secure industrial markets and raw materials. Japanese treatment of prisoners of war was equally harsh. Japan professed a commitment to ending Western colonialism, but the brutality of the Japanese convinced many Asians to resist Japanese occupation.

Ch. 19 Resources

See the war through the eyes of soldiers, secret agents, pilots and evacuees.

Life for children during the war.

Listen to an air raid warning.

The blitz and the home front in the UK.

Churchill and the bombing of Dresden



Audio file of the death dive of a Kamikaze.

Cf. http://avanimation.avsupport.com/sound/Kamikaze.wav

London, England during World War II

Cologne, 1944




BETTE MIDLER with The Harlettes - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - This was from the Johnny Carson Show on September 12, 1973. The show was actually taped the day before, 2:20

BETTE MIDLER with The Harlettes - Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV91lFBA8As

SONGS OF WORLD WAR TWO: MEDLEY 2, 9:52



The Ramones - "Blitzkrieg Bop" (Live) Studio Hamburg, 2:04



The Chapter 18 Test is on Monday.

How To Take Effective Notes

Email to gmsmith@shanahan.org

Thursday: p. 595, Section 1 Assessment, #5-7

p. 596, Preview Questions, #1-2

Friday (The scheduled changed so not due until next week p. 599): Reading Check

Evaluating

In the spring of 1941, what caused Hitler to delay his invasion of the Soviet Union? What halted the German advance once it had begun?

p. 599, Geography Skills, #1-2

p. 600, Reading Check

Describing

By the spring of 1942, which territories did Japan control?