World War II

World War II was the third time almost every world power was involved in a global conflict. It started when Germany began to invade and conquer neighboring countries, with Adolf Hitler in charge. Hitler was a determined man and his plan for Germany was to take over all of Europe. After observing the power that it had built up the Allies decided that they should try to appease the wrath of Germany, so when Hitler tried to take Checkoslovakia they stood back, they thought that Germany would take it and be content. But then Germany took on Poland, and this came easily for Germany, especially given it’s powerful weapons. However, by conquering Poland and Checkoslovakia, Germany was violating the Treaty of Versailles, where it stated that Germany could not expand it’s borders. Germany violated the treaty in other ways as well, before the conquest of Poland, Germany had secretly built military power, such as small war ships called U boats, but since they were so small, Germany was technically still abiding by the rules. Now that Hitler had Poland and Checkoslovakia, Germany had the resources to develop a much more powerful military. It was during this time that Germany developed a new fighting style called Blitzkrieg, men and tanks would run into a battle and quickly kill or crush the enemy, it was very frightening to see a massive tank powering straight towards someone along with men rushing behind slaughtering as they went, the strategy proved to be quite effective. With this new fighting style Germany had an amazing string of victories, countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, and even France were no mach for the power of Germany. One reason I think Germany did so well at first was because the nation was determined to get revenge on the Allies for putting them through a time of economic hardship, due to the high compensation price of the Treaty of Versailles, and another reason would be that they had a strong dictator encouraging them to fight on.

            At this point, Germany wanted to take on both Britain and the Soviet Union. In 1940, heavy bombings occurred in Britain, these were destructive and sometimes lasted for days. All this time the Germans had been using the U boats to fight the Battle of the Atlantic, the German ships would attack and sink the supply boats coming to support Britain and France, and this was bad news for Britain, especially because they needed a minimum of 20 supply boats every day to support themselves. However, when Germany actually attacked Britain, they were heavily resisted and had to turn their sights towards the Soviet Union, which had supposedly been allied with them, but Hitler was not going to let that stop him, he quickly organized his men and ‘Operation Barbarossa’ commenced. Germany was doing well at first, they made their way in and took over quite a bit of territory, and they almost conquered Moscow, but their string of luck ran dry when the cold winter of 1941 arrived, killing thousand of Germans.

            After failing to conquer the U.S.S.R., Germany would not be on the offensive much for the rest of the war. It reached its peak in 1942, having the countries of France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Checkoslovokia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Estonia, Albania, Greece, Italy, and many others. It was at this time that Britain went on the offensive, and directed bombings on Germany. Finally even the U.S. became involved, they had been supporting Britain all along by sending supplies, but now they became militarily active. The U.S. planned to attack Germany on the beaches of Normandy, intending to work their way down to France, and from this point onward the Allied forces started to succeed against the Axis. One of the most important battles at this time was the ‘Battle of the Bulge’, it was one of the last battles to free France, and the Allies proved successful in it and the Germans were forced to retreat, (the fleeing army of Germany looked like a large black bulge.) Another very important battle in World War 2 was the ‘Battle of Berlin’, this involved neither the U.S. nor Britain, it was actually the Soviet Union that Attacked and conquered the great city of Berlin, causing Germany to surrender to the Allied forces on May 8, 1945.

            As peace was arranged Germany was not trusted to govern itself and was divided four ways between the U.S., Britain, the U.S.S.R., and France. Just like in the Treaty of Versailles, Germany once more had to pay compensation. This again brought them into an economic downturn, but the United States decided to give them a great amount of money to support themselves, however this money was in dollars, it was useless to Germany unless it was spent on American goods, so America was helping their own economy, but Germany found a way around it, instead of spending it all on American goods, they declared a new currency, and then the economy began to move again.

            While Germany was conquering Europe in the 1940’s, there was a whole other side of the war, this was the Pacific Theater, the war between Japan and America. Japan had been expanding long before the war, they grew to own most of Oceania, a large portion of China, and Korea. Once again America wanted to stay out of the war, but after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, killing 2,500 soldiers and destroying 3 battleships, America declared war on Japan and Germany. Like Germany, Japan was having a string of great success, they even won the ‘Battle of Singapore’ in which Japan attacked Britain, this resulted in the surrender of 85,000 British soldiers. The U.S. finally succeeded, though, in the ‘Battle of the Coral Sea’ in May of 1942, the Allies had done well for themselves sinking 2 aircraft carriers, and this enabled them to win the ‘Battle of Midway’ in which 3 Japanese aircraft carriers were sunk and 3,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. On the Allies side, only one aircraft carrier was sunk and only 350 men were killed. This battle was a defining factor in how the Pacific Theater of World War 2 would turn out. Once again, like the Germans the Japanese’s luck had begun to run dry. At this time the Allies attempted several attacks on the Japanese by land, they invaded their pacific territories, but were outflanked and had to retreat in many cases, however, the Americans did succeed in the ‘Battle of Iwo Jima’. This was a 5 week skirmish on the island of Iwo Jima, and it was unique because the Japanese had a special cave system that ran throughout the island, this way they could come right out of the ground and attack. It is quite frightening to think about, imagine being an American soldier on Iwo Jima, knowing that the Japanese might be right underneath you and could come out of the ground at any time. There were 70,000 American soldiers against 22,000, Japanese and despite their defensive advantage, after a long 5 weeks they surrendered. This may have been an amazing American victory, but it cost the lives of 25,000 Americans, then following the battle there were small shootouts, because there were still Japanese soldiers hiding in the caves. When May 1945 came, the European theater of the war ended and the Americans wanted the pacific theater to end as well.

            President Harry Truman who succeeded the late Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a few choices of what to do to end the war, he could send an army to invade Japan, or he could authorize the bomb. He could have done other things as well, but usually it is historically presented that he only had those 2 choices, and he chose to unleash the destructive power of the Atomic Bomb. It was dropped on the civilian city of Hiroshima, and the president hoped that it would scare the Japanese into a surrender, but it did not, in response to which, Truman authorized another bomb to be dropped on Nagasaki. The utter destruction and pain that these bombs caused was unreal, they desolated entire cities and left them in ruins. At this the Japanese finally surrendered on August 14, 1945.

            Finally, World War 2 had ended in the Pacific Theater, but in my opinion Harry Truman was definitely playing dirty when he authorized the bomb to be dropped on innocent women and children, that was something that cannot be overlooked, it is a well known fact that in war you do not deliberately target the innocent. On top of the death toll of the first bomb, and the fact that it did not even bring them closer to the end, he then had the audacity to drop another bomb on the civilians of Nagasaki. One more horrifying fact is that the Japanese had requested an unconditional surrender before the bombs were dropped, Harry Truman could have accepted the surrender and the war would be over, perhaps the reason that he did not was because he wanted revenge, or possibly he wanted to see the power of the bomb, but for whatever reason he did not accept the surrender and chose instead to authorize the killing of thousands of people.

            World War 2 was a massive global conflict that lasted 5 years with a cost untold of human lives, and the world would feel the effects of it for many years to come.

Information gathered from the RPC 8^th grade history class and The Washington Post “Five myths about the atomic bomb.”