Global Conflict: Axis Advances

1
Global Conflict Axis Advances

• How did new technologies affect the fighting in
  WWII?
• What goals did the Axis powers pursue in Europe
  and Asia?
• Why did Japan attack the US?

2
The First Onslaught

• 1939- Blitzkrieg- lightning war
• German bombers and tanks smash Poland
• Stalin attacks from the East
• One month later, Poland exists no more

3
Early Axis Victories

• France waits behind the Maginot Line
• April 1940- Germany
• Conquers Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and the
  Netherlands

4
Miracle At Dunkirk

• May 1940- Allied forces are trapped between the
  Nazis and the English Channel
• Naval ships and pleasure boats rescued troops
• 300,000 troops saved
• Raised British morale

5
Fall of France

• Germany attacks from the North and Italy from the
  South
• June 1940- France signs the surrender in the
  same railroad car that Germany had signed the WWI
  surrender
• Vichy- puppet government set up in France by
  Germany
• Charles de Gaulle leads the free French forces

6
Modern Warfare

• New technologies improve weapons
• Faster tanks
• Submarines
• Paratroopers
• Scientists helped improve weapons
• Use of sonar and radar

7
Battle of Britain

• Operation Sea Lion
• Hitler tries to weaken Britains air power and
  will to resist
• August 12, 1940- massive German air strikes
• RAF fights back

8
London Blitz

• Sept. 7, 1940- 57 nights straight German planes
  bomb the capital
• 15,000 die
• Air raid sirens every night
• People go to underground shelters
• People continued daily lives
• Germans finally leave

9
Axis Advances

• Sept. 1940- fighting in N. Africa
• Erwin Rommel- Desert Fox- successful
• Greece and Yugoslavia conquered
• 1941- Axis controls W. Europe

10
Operation Barbarossa

• Hitlers plan to conquer Russia
• Wanted to gain the natural resources
• Forests
• Wheat
• Destroy Communism
• Defeat Stalin

11
Germans Advance To Russia

• 3 million Germans attack
• Russia lost 2-3 million soldiers
• By the fall, Germans set to take Moscow and
  Leningrad
• General Winter- 1000s freeze and die

12
Siege of Leningrad

• Sept. 1941- 2 ½ yr. Siege on Leningrad
• Food rations- 2 pieces of bread a day
• Boiled wallpaper and leather to eat
• Over 1 million Russians die
• Stalin asks Britain to open a 2nd front

13
American Involvement

• 1941- Lend-Lease Act- US could sell or lend war
  materials to any country whose defense the
  President deems vital to the defense of the US
• Atlantic Charter- FDR and Churchill meet
  secretly on a warship to discuss war goals

14
Tension Between US and Japan

• Japan invades SE Asia for oil
• US bans sale of oil, iron, and steel
• Japanese are furious
• Attack is imminent

15
Pearl Harbor

• December 7, 1941
• 2,400 Americans die
• 19 ships destroyed
• FDR a date that will live in infamy
• US declares war