World War 2

Imagine, it's 1939 and you're sitting at home with your family when you hear screaming outside, you open the door to see what is going on and, BANG! your dead. On September 1, 1939 less than one year after the Munich Agreement, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. His goal was to eliminate all of the Jews. Britain and France promised to help Poland but Britain was too far away for their Air Force to help and France was too afraid to help because they were afraid of the Germans. Poland had very little Navy and Air Force to fight the Germans. Poland was also invaded by the Soviet Union at the same time so their military was too small to fight the Germans and the Soviet Union. The Warsaw was taken over on September 27, and organized resistance was over by October 5(O'Neill 268). This invasion started World War II. France, Russia, England, and the United States formed what was called the Allied forces to fight against the Nazis. Germany joined with Italy and Japan and they were the Axis alliance to fight against the Allied forces (Strahinich 16-17).

World War II was the bloodiest war in all of war history. The war went on and eventually turned against Germany and the Nazis. The Nazis did not however relax their assault against the Jews. As the war went on the Nazis killed the Jews in greater and greater numbers (Strahinich 17). Mussolini was jealous of Hitler but he was naturally drawn to form an alliance with Germany. Italy could have joined with allied countries but they would not have gone along with Mussolini's expansion plans while Hitler did. Italy seized Albania in 1939. To make sure Germany would win the battle Italy invaded France on June 10, 1940 but they were unsuccessful. Even though Mussolini failed, Hitler still rewarded Mussolini for attacking France.

As the war went on the United States could not help Poland because they did not belong to the League of Nations, and was not allied with anyone. After war broke out the United States remained neutral as required by law. The United States would lend Britain 50 or 60 U.S. destroyers for the American right to use British bases in the Western Hemisphere. People of the United States thought that if the Germans beat the British and the Soviet Union that Germany would invade the United States and fight in the United States, so they said they would fight as far away from the United States as possible. 62% of the people went with the order that the president gave, the command to shoot-on-site. With London in flames many Americans thought that Germany bombers would come and bomb New York or Washington D.C.

The United States played another huge role in the War by starting the Lend-Lease Program. After a vacation, Roosevelt met with the press and announced his answer to Britain's need for money. This was to give Britain money, which was just as the isolationists had feared. He was not going to loan Britain money, but to give them munitions and armaments. It would also go to the Soviet Union after Germany invaded it in the summer of 1941. Ultimately, 38 nations would receive Lend-Lease supplies valued at somewhere between $42 and $50 billion. After several weeks of debate, Congress allowed warring nations to purchase arms and other goods, provided that they paid for them in cash and transported them in foreign ships. The Cash and Carry favored the Allies. The British and French Navies controlled the Atlantic Ocean so German merchant ships could not reach American ports.

The basic U-boat could cruise on the surface for 12,600 nautical miles and dive to a depth of 1,000 feet, and like all subs it dived only when it had to. On the surface their speed was 17 Knots, while underwater they only got a speed of 7 Knots. The German U-boats were no match for the Allied-hunter-killer taskforces introduced in 1943. The Allied forces improved antisubmarine weapons and destroyed Germany's U-boat forces. Near the end of the war the Germans came close to deploying a true submarine, the "Walter", which had a propeller system supplied with oxygen and steam created by the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide(O'Neill 336). It was tested in 1944 but never was operational.

On July 25, 1940 Roosevelt signed an order embargoing aviation fuel and lubricants and the type of scrap metal for making steel. In August and September, Tokyo forced Britain to take their troops out. They wanted them to recognize their claims that they had. Roosevelt had embargoed all iron and steel scraps. Japan signed a treaty with Germany and Italy that specified that if any of them went to war they would help.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The Japanese dropped the first bomb on Pearl Harbor a few minutes after 8 o'clock a.m. The Americans were not ready for the attack. Therefore the Japanese commander said "it is going to be a surprise attack" (Isserman 30). There were men watching the radar when blips appeared on the radar, but the Navy ignored it. They thought it was the planes that were arriving from California. Within minutes after the arrival of the first wave of Japanese attackers, Pearl Harbor became a scene of horror, destruction, and confusion with the U.S. A torpedo hit the battleship U.S.S. West Virginia and a set of explosions went off. A torpedo hit U.S.S. Arizona and it's blazes set the U.S.S. Tennessee on fire. The U.S.S. Arizona is still resting in Pearl Harbor, and serves as a memorial to Americans of what the Japanese did to us. When the second wave of Japanese attackers came at 8:40 a.m. the Americans were able to put up more resistance in the air. The attack on Pearl Harbor ended two hours after it started. The Japanese only had twenty-nine planes shot out of the air, and they knew they had the victory.