Early War and America's Entrance
What was the London Blitz, and what was its effect?
Possible answers:
1. The London Blitz was a period of time during which German forces repeatedly bombed the city of London.
2. The German hoped that their bombings would decrease Allied morale.
3. For some residents of London, the bombing was galvanizing and unifying, but for many others, the Blitz was a time of constant fear.
4. The London Blitz destroyed countless buildings and took many lives. Overall, it weakened British forces.
How did daily life change for all people on the homefront?
Possible answers:
1. Food and other necessary supplies were rationed.
2. Gasoline usage was restricted and speed limits were reduced.
3. Buying war bonds was encouraged.
4. Ordinary scrap metal, tire rubber, and more was utilized for use in production of war supplies.
5. Many grew their own food in victory gardens.
Who made the call to invade Normandy, and what was the invasion's codename?
American General Dwight D. Eisenhower; Overlord
What groups of people were targeted?
Possible answers:
1. Jews
2. Homosexuals
3. Liberal members of Parliament/other political opponents
4. Roma/Sinti (gypsies)
5. Jehovah's Witnesses
6. People with disabilities
7. The black and mixed-race population
8. "Asocials"
How did Japan gain territory, and how did it fight back against American military force?
Possible answers:
1. Japanese soldiers dressed up as Chinese soldiers to attack the Manchurian Railway and justify their seizure of the rest of the country.
2. Japan violently conducted genocides in and around Beijing to gain control of parts of China.
3. Japan also used violent attacks to gain control of French Indochina.
4. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in an attempt to force America to accept its control of the Pacific.
5. Soldiers conducted kamikaze attacks by purposefully flying their planes into Allied targets.
6. More traditional naval, aerial, and land combat strategies were also used.
What was the Siege of Leningrad, and how were the Soviets able to push away German forces?
Possible answers:
1. The Siege of Leningrad was an attempt by the Axis Powers (specifically Germany) to weaken the Allies at the Soviet city of Leningrad.
2. During the siege, Leningrad was bombed and materials were not allowed to enter the city. The latter caused oil and coal to run out, eliminating central heating and causing pipelines to burst and water to become undrinkable. Food was rationed, and residents starved or froze to death.
3. During the winter, a nearby lake froze over, and supplies could be carted in, allowing the Soviets to gain power and push away the Germans.
How and why did public opinion of women change during the war?
Possible answers:
1. Women were viewed less as exclusively housewives and more as possible employees in areas usually dominated by men.
2. Women were encouraged to work jobs as riveters, munitions workers, and more in wartime industry and production in addition to continuing work in clerical services.
3. This change occurred largely because as men left the homefront to serve overseas, more people were needed to fills jobs, and more products were required in order to support the war effort.
What challenges did the Allies face before D-Day?
Possible answers:
1. Coordination needed to occur between a dozen countries.
2. About 150,000 troops as well as countless weapons and vehicles needed to be gathered.
3. They had to choose a suitable landing location as well as more specific locations on the shore where the Atlantic Wall would be less fortified.
4. They had to choose a day and time with weather that would lend itself to the mass movement of troops across the tumultuous English Channel.
How were interned citizens treated inside and on their way to concentration camps?
Possible answers:
1. In camps, they were forced to participate in intense physical labor.
2. Families were separated.
3. In camps, food was inadequate.
4. Countless people were sent to gas chambers and crematoriums.
5. On their way to camps, people were crowded into train cars with only enough room to stand, little or no food or water, and one bucket. They were told they were being brought to a place of refuge. Transportation to the camps could take a great amount of time, as many people were brought from other countries.
6. Many were forced to participate in death marches, during which people would be killed at random.
What were the consequences of the use of the atomic bomb?
Possible answers:
1. Tens of thousands of Japanese citizens (if not more) died when the bomb hit or soon after.
2. Countless more suffered horrible burns, diseases, and radiation poisoning afterward.
4. Japan surrendered and the war ended soon afterward.
5. A deadly invasion of Japan was avoided.
6. The horrors of the atomic bomb were demonstrated to the world.
7. Japan ended its aggressive expansion.
8. More American/Allied troops and supplies could be used in Europe.
What is a blitzkrieg, and how did Germany use it?
Possible answers:
1. A blitzkrieg is a swift and aggressive attack intended to quickly overwhelm an opponent.
2. During an early blitzkrieg, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark, securing its northern flank and isolating Sweden and its natural resources.
3. Another blitzkrieg involved a defeat of British and French forces in Belgium and the Netherlands and caused British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to resign.
4. During a major blitzkrieg, Germany plowed through France's Maginot Line, ensuring access to the country and a route to the English Channel.
How did life change for African Americans during the war?
Possible answers:
1. Many were encouraged to participate in Engineering, Science, and Management War Training programs in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
2. Some were able to become engineers, managers, and more and contribute to the war effort (especially in the North).
3. A report titled “Attitudes of the Negro Soldier” was released that claimed that African Americans should have higher military positions, more attention should be brought to their achievements, and awareness should be spread about opposing beliefs.
4. Many participated in civil rights demonstrations like sit-ins because they did not want to join training programs to support the country that did not grant them equal rights.
What challenges did the Allies face on D-Day?
Possible answers:
1. Bad weather and choppy water made troops seasick and disrupted ships carrying tanks.
2. Aerial and naval attempts to destroy the Atlantic Wall failed, so troops had to march on shore under a constant barrage of bullets.
3. At Omaha, the landscape made it easy for German troops to shoot down American troops.
4. At Utah, troops arrived on shore one mile off-target.
5. At Omaha, troops had to climb a cliff under fire in order to destroy German defenses.
How were Jews treated outside of concentration camps?
Possible answers:
1. Their businesses and synagogues were destroyed, such as on the Night of Broken Glass.
2. They were kept separate from "Aryans," with different doctors, shops, and more. Many children had to transfer to private school in accordance with the “Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities.”
3. They faced constant discrimination and ridicule for being, as the public believed, ugly and fundamentally inferior. This was supported by the Nuremberg Race Laws.
4. They could not marry or have sexual relations with non-Jews.
5. Their passports were stamped with a "J," their middle names were officially changed to Sara or Israel to identify them as Jewish, and their ability to leave the country was sometimes limited.
6. Many were murdered or assaulted.
7. They could not work in schools or universities or as government or trade officials, lawyers, business owners, or journalists.
8. They could be held in prison indefinitely in accordance with the “Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals."
9. They were forced to wear badges, patches, or other means of identification.
10. If they were found to be in hiding, they would be killed.
What would America's strategy have been had it not used the atomic bomb/if Japan had not surrendered?
Possible answers:
1. The Allies would have continued to firebomb Japanese cities.
2. A violent invasion of the mainland would have occurred, costing all nations involved countless military and civilian lives.
3. A blockade of Japan's home islands would have continued.
What led to France's signing of an armistice with Germany, and what was its effect?
Possible answers:
1. When a German blitzkrieg allowed it to gain control of Paris, the French government relocated and disintegrated. A new government formed, and the powerful German forces left the it no choice but to sign an armistice.
2. The armistice was signed in the same train car in which the armistice ending WWI and blaming Germany for the war was signed.
3. The armistice allowed for a German occupation of two-thirds of France and disbanded French military forces.
4. This gave Germany much greater power, weakened the Allies, and made an amphibious invasion on the coast of France necessary in order for the Allies to overpower Germany.
What was life like for interned Japanese Americans?
Possible answers:
1. In some camps, families were crowded into horse stalls with dirt floors, while in other, more permanent camps, families stayed in less uncomfortable Army-style barracks.
2. Some camps had schools and school activities, police and fire departments, markets, newspapers, and more.
3. People interned in camps could not move about freely; they were fenced in and surrounded by barbed wire.
4. Japanese Americans were forced to pledge loyalty to the U.S. and say they were willing to join the military or else be sent away to camps separate from their families.
5. While interned, many lost property.
What strategies did Allied forces use in their invasion of Normandy?
Possible answers:
1. They chose an amphibious landing because they knew that despite its risks, it was the only way to regain control of France and meet up with the Soviets to defeat the Axis Powers.
2. They chose spots to land where the Germans would not expect them to be but that lent themselves to combat.
3. They transported troops using newly-invented Higgins boats.
4. They chose to invade during a time of day when it was forecasted to be clear.
5. They brought onto shore tanks and other vehicles useful in land combat.
6. They attacked with vast numbers of troops to overwhelm the Germans and optimize the probability of successfully destroying German defenses.
Why were the Jews targeted?
Possible answers:
1. There was a preexisting idea that Jews were a separate race from the Germans. Stereotypes of physical differences made that easy for the Germans to believe.
2. After the troubled Weimar Republic, German citizens were easily swept up into the idea of nationalism and the unification of the Germanic race. This involved the persecution of Jews.
3. Jews were used as scapegoats for Germany's defeat in WWI.
How did the Allies (especially America) gain power in the Pacific?
Possible answers:
1. The used the strategy of island-hopping by isolating major islands and gradually gaining control of smaller islands, then bigger and bigger ones.
2. They gained control of islands near Australia in the southern Pacific in order to prevent the Japanese from seizing land there and using Australia as battlegrounds.
3. They used aerial attacks and submarine attacks on Japanese-controlled islands.
Why did America join the war? What conditions led to Japan's attack? What were Japan's long-term goals during that time period, and what effect did Japan think an attack would have on America?
Possible answers:
1. America joined the war because Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was considered a hostile initiation of war.
2. Japan had a long-term goal of aggressive expansion of its empire throughout the Pacific and nearby countries.
3. Japan had already expanded its control into Manchuria, eastern inner Mongolia, northern China around Beijing, and French Indochina.
4. Japan attacked Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island, and Midway Island on the same day that it bombed Pearl Harbor.
5. Japan hoped that an attack on Pearl Harbor would persuade America to grant Japan control of the Pacific.
What conditions at and away from the home front led to the Executive Order #9066?
Possible answers:
1. On the Pacific Coast especially, people thought after the attack on Pearl Harbor that Japanese Americans were plotting with Japan's government to stage attacks on the U.S.
2. Government officials though internment would be unwise, illegal, and morally questionable, but military leaders pressured the government into signing the order.
Why was the invasion of Normandy required in order for the Allies to defeat the Axis Powers?
Possible answers:
1. In order for the Soviets to join forces with the rest of the Allies, there had to be a meeting point halfway, and the only way for the Allies (except the Soviets) to enter Germany, where the meeting point of Berlin was located, was to invade the western coast.
2. German had control of France, strengthening the Axis Powers and weakening the Allies. The only way the Allies could win was to regain control of German-occupied France.
3. Aerial attacks were not enough to regain control of France; an amphibious landing was necessary.
4. If they had waited much longer to invade, Germany would have gained too much power and inflicted too much damage upon England through its continued bombing. Germany would have also continued its genocide.
How did the Nazis come to power in Germany?
Possible answers:
1. After the weak and disorganized Weimar Republic, Hitler promised organization and power.
2. Hitler was more than willing to take out his political opponents.
3. Hitler's charisma made him the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
4. While the government was paralyzed by political divisions, the Nazis got seats in the Reichstag. Conservative politicians were afraid of the Communists, who had also gotten seats, so they appointed Hitler chancellor, thinking they could control him.
4. The president died, and Hitler made himself Führer.
5. Hitler made troops, civil servants, politicians, and more swear an oath of loyalty to him.
6. The Germans hated of Treaty of Versailles and blamed the Weimar Republic for it, so they supported Hitler's rule.
7. Hitler promised jobs for the unemployed and an improved economy. This overshadowed his more radical anti-semitic views.
Why did America drop the atomic bomb?
Possible answers:
1. Japanese morale and willingness to fight was high, as shown by its kamikaze attacks, and it was improbable that they would easily back down.
2. It increased the probability of surrender. Without surrender, a bloody invasion of mainland Japan would have had to occur.
3. The government didn't want to waste the $2 billion dollars that went into it.
4. Only two bombs had been made and one was in the process of being made, so the government did not want to waste one on a demonstration explosion.
5. Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been firebombed anyway.