# data[].attributes.body
On December 7, 1941

# data[].attributes.body
was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by the German Air Force

# data[].attributes.body
The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War.

# data[].attributes.body
I learned a lot about WWII. I learned about the battles, the countries involved, and things that led to WWII. I feel like WWII could've possibly been prevented if the countries involved in WWI had a better agreement about how they were gonna cover the war debts, but you never know, maybe a big war was bound to happen anyway.

# data[].attributes.body
8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on Pearl Harbor ,a naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii , where they managed to destroy/ damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded.

# data[].attributes.body
Country: Germany
Born: April 20, 1889, Austria
Died: April 30 1945, Berlin Germany
Type of gov't they had: dictatorship and totalitarianism
How he came to power: The Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. In 1932 Hitler ran for president and came in second, but became a chancellor.

# data[].attributes.body
Country: Japan
Born: December 30, 1884, Tokyo Japan
Died: December 23 1948
Type of gov't they had: Daijō-kan (1868–1885) Constitutional monarchy (1890–1940, 1945–1947) One-party totalitarian military dictatorship under an absolute monarchy (1940–1945) Supreme Commander for the Allies (1945-1947)

# data[].attributes.body
- Country: Soviet Union
- Born: December 18, 1878, Georgia
- Died: March 5, 1953,
- Type of gov't they had: Communism
- How he came to power: Served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1953.

# data[].attributes.body
- Country: Italy
- Born on July 29, 1883 in  Predappio, Italy
- Died by being executed on April 28, 1945 in Giulino, Italy.
- Type of gov't they had: Fascism
- How he came to power: Originally a revolutionary Socialist, he forged the paramilitary Fascist movement in 1919 and became prime minister in 1922.

# data[].attributes.body
By May 1940, Europe had been at war for nine months. Yet Britain and France, despite having declared war on Germany in September 1939 following Hitler's attack on Poland, had seen little real fighting. This tense period of anticipation – which came to be known as the 'Phoney War' – met an abrupt end on 10 May 1940, when Germany launched an invasion of France and the Low Countries.

# data[].attributes.body
The German plan of attack, code named Case Yellow, entailed an armored offensive through the Ardennes Forest, which bypassed the strong French frontier defenses of the Maginot Line. The advance would then threaten to encircle French and British divisions to the north, stationed on the Belgian frontier.

# data[].attributes.body
- Country: U.S
- Born: January 30, 1882
- Died: April 12, 1945
- Type of gov't they had: Democracy
-  How he came to power: Was the 32nd POTUS from 1933 until his death during his fourth term.

# data[].attributes.body
- Born: May 8, 1884
- Died: December 26, 1972
-Nicknames: Give em hell harry
- Spouse(s): Martha Ellen Truman
- Children: Mary Margaret

# data[].attributes.body
- Country: Britain
- Born: November 30, 1874
- Died: January 24, 1965
- Type of gov't they had: Republican
- How he came to power: On May 10, Chamberlain formally lost the confidence of the House of Commons and Churchill, who was known for his military leadership ability, was appointed British prime minister in his place. He formed an all-party coalition and quickly won the support from many people.

# data[].attributes.body
- Country: Britain
- Born: March 18 1869
- Died: November 9, 1940
- Type of gov't they had: Democracy
- How he came to power: He served as British prime minister from 1937 to 1940.

# data[].attributes.body
A treaty made by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 that opened the way for both nations to invade Poland.

# data[].attributes.body
Germany & the Soviet Union

# data[].attributes.body
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953) viewed the pact as a way to keep his nation on peaceful terms with Germany, while giving him time to build up the Soviet military.

German chancellor Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945) used the pact to make sure Germany was able to invade Poland unopposed.

# data[].attributes.body
Policy of conceding to an enemy in hopes of maintaining peace.

# data[].attributes.body
France and Great Britain

# data[].attributes.body
June 6th 1944

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LEGO WW2 BATTLE: NORMANDY D-DAY LANDING - LEGO SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

# data[].attributes.body
Munich Agreement

# data[].attributes.body
Blitzkrieg: lighting war, take the enemy by surprise and crush all opposition with overwhelming force.
Sitzkrieg: sitting war

# data[].attributes.body
France and Great Britain

# data[].attributes.body
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland. Hitler invaded Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg.

# data[].attributes.headline
June 1940 - France fell to advancing forces

# data[].attributes.subject
June 1940 - France fell to advancing forces

# data[].attributes.body
Germany occupation of northern region.
Nazi puppet-gov't controlled southern region.

# data[].attributes.body
Germans along the west coast of France set up to invade GB.

# data[].attributes.headline
What type of attack did Hitler launch on GB? 

# data[].attributes.subject
What type of attack did Hitler launch on GB? 

# data[].attributes.body
Hitler launched air strikes on GB to bomb cities and defeat the British Royal Air Force (RAF).
Bombed London every night for 2 months

# data[].attributes.body
used radars to locate enemy planes in the dark

# data[].attributes.body
Hitler called off the invasion of GB.
German planes continued to bomb London, while British planes bombed Germany cities.

# data[].attributes.body
The great arsenal of democracy came to specifically refer to the industry of the U.S., as the primary supplier of material for the Allied war effort.

# data[].attributes.body
Roosevelt promised to help the United Kingdom fight Nazi Germany by giving them military supplies while the United States stayed out of the actual fighting.

# data[].attributes.body
Naval U-boat tactic

# data[].attributes.body
Wolf packs were made to counter the convoy system of naval combat.

# data[].attributes.body
Japan declared war on the U.S.

# data[].attributes.body
Lend or Lease arms and other war supplies to any country whose defense was vital to the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
March 1941

# data[].attributes.body
Hitler invaded Soviet Union (violation of the nonaggression pact) so... US sent lend-lease supplies to Stalin/USSR "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"

# data[].attributes.body
When the US broke Japanese secret codes, we discovered that Japan was planning to attack us but we didn't know exactly when it would happen. So FDR then sent military war warnings to the bases in Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines.

# data[].attributes.body
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps

# data[].attributes.body
On May 15, 1942 it was converted to an active duty status in the army of the United States as the WAC on July 1, 1943.

# data[].attributes.body
George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff General.
1. Women volunteers could serve in noncombat positions with official military

# data[].attributes.body
Decemeber 8, 1941

# data[].attributes.body
President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

# data[].attributes.body
Established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War II.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Fought inflation by freezing prices on most goods
2. Raised income tax rates
3. Encouraged extra money be spent on war bonds
4. Effective - inflation remained below 30% in WW2

# data[].attributes.body
Was the code name for the secret US government research and engineering project during the Second World War that developed the world's first nuclear weapons.

# data[].attributes.body
Hitler set up an escape plan to rescue Mussolini from a hotel where he was imprisoned at. In the early afternoon of September 12, 1943 12 gliders prepared to descend. Skorzeny, one of Hitler's men, found Mussolini, escorted him to a plane and then they escaped. Nineteen months after his rescue Mussolini, some followers, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were spotted trying to escape into Switzerland.

# data[].attributes.body
On this day, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive or Battle of the Bulge.

# data[].attributes.body
Nazi Germany
Allied powers
Canada

# data[].attributes.body
The Office of Price Administration mandates that from that day on, no driver will be permitted to own more than 5 automobile tires.

# data[].attributes.body
The battle ended on January 25, 1945. The campaign lasted for approximately five weeks.
German lines had been pushed back to their initial jumping off point. Germans lost approximately 100,000 men, while Allied casualties were placed at about 80,000.

# data[].attributes.body
FDR established the Office of Price Administration & the Civilian Supply in April 1941 to:
1. stabilize prices and rents and prevent unwarranted increases in them
2. to prevent profiteering, hoarding, and speculation
3.  to assure that defense appropriations were not dissipated by excessive prices
4. to protect those with fixed incomes from undue impairment of their living standards
5. to assist in securing adequate production
6. and to prevent a post-emergency collapse of values.

# data[].attributes.body
The OPA was responsible for 2 things:
1. The first limited the purchase of certain commodities (tires, cars, metal typewriters, bicycles, stoves and rubber shoes) to people who had demonstrated an especial need for them.
2. The second limited the quantity of things–like butter, coffee, sugar, cooking fat, gasoline and non-rubber shoes–which every citizen was allowed to buy.

# data[].attributes.body
The Manhattan Project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s—and that Adolf Hitler was prepared to use it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World War II Part 1: Crash Course US History #35

# data[].attributes.body
Dec 16, 1944- Jan 25, 1945

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
US President Franklin Roosevelt's "Great Arsenal of Democracy" speech. HD Stock Footage

# data[].attributes.body
FDR called the U.S the "great arsenal democracy" because he wanted to continue the supply of arms to countries facing threats by Axis Powers.

# data[].attributes.body
The OSRD appointed U.S. Army Colonel Leslie R. Groves to led this project.

# data[].attributes.body
The Battle of the Atlantic was the war's longest continuous military campaign. The Battle of the Atlantic, in World War II, was a contest between the Western Allies and the Axis powers (particularly Germany) for the control of Atlantic sea routes.

# data[].attributes.body
1.blockade of the Axis Power in Europe
2. security of Allied sea movements
3. freedom to project military power across the seas.

# data[].attributes.body
The battle lasted from from September 3, 1939 to May 8, 1945.

# data[].attributes.body
General Dwight D. Eisenhower

# data[].attributes.body
Code-named Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
President Franklin D. Roosevelt Declares War on Japan (Full Speech) | War Archives

# data[].attributes.body
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. that happened a little before 8 a.m. on that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they destroyed or damaged nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded.

# data[].attributes.body
- Benito Mussolini was an Italian dictator who created the Fascist Party in 1919 and eventually held all the power in Italy as the country’s prime minister from 1922 until 1943. An ardent socialist as a youth, Mussolini followed in his father's political footsteps but was expelled by the party for his support of World War I. As dictator during World War II, he overextended his forces and was eventually killed by his own people in Mezzegra, Italy.

# data[].attributes.body
The Battle of Midway started 6 months after the attack at Pearl Harbor.

Midway was an Island northwest of Hawaii.

The Japanese codes were broken to reveal the planned attack on Midway.

Admiral Chester Nimitz was the leader that was sent to defeat Midway.

June 3, 1942- US scouts found Japanese fleets.

Nimitz sent American torpedo planes and dive bombers, the Japanese couldn't reat the bombers, all aircrats remained on the decks and so the Japanese lost 4 aircrafts carriers and 250 planes.

The Battle of Midway was considered the turning point in WW2 in the Pacific becuase the Allies were "Island hopping" to get closer to Japan.

# data[].attributes.body
On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Then on August 15th Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender in World War II in a radio address citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

# data[].attributes.body
Feb 1945- Big Three (FDR, Churchill, & Stalin) met in USSR to discuss Germany's fate when they lost.

The Yalta Conference was the second wartime meeting.

During the conference, the three leaders agreed to demand Germany’s unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world. Stalin also agreed to permit free elections in Eastern Europe and to enter the Asian war against Japan, for which he was promised the return of lands lost to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.

Stalin- harsh approach, separate Germany into zones occupied by Allied Troops.

Churchill- disagreed

FDR- acted as a mediator because he wanted the Soviet army to join in the Pacific, and he wanted Stalin's support of new world peace-keeping organization called the United Nations.

# data[].attributes.body
The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949.

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was never brought to trial.

The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

The Discovery of death camps led to 24 Nazi leaders on trial for:   Crimes against humanity(murder, extermination, deportation, or enslavement of citizens); Crimes against peace(planning/waging an aggressive war); War crimes(acts against the customs of warfare)

Prosecutions were led by: US Chief Justice Robert Jackson

12 of 24 sentenced to death (2 committed suicide before execution), most remaining sentenced to prison time.

6 million European Jews and an estimated 4 to 6 million Non-Jews were executed

# data[].attributes.body
Country, Military & Civilian Deaths
Albania | 30,000 | 30,200
Australia | 39,800 | 40,500
Austria | 261,000 | 384,700
Belgium | 12,100 | 86,100
Brazil | 1,000 | 2,000
Bulgaria | 22,000 | 25,000
Canada | 45,400 | 45,400
China | 3-4,000,000 | 20,000,000
Czechoslovakia | 25,000 | 345,000
Denmark | 2,100 | 3,200
Dutch East Indies | -- | 3-4,000,000
Estonia | -- | 51,000
Ethiopia | 5,000 | 100,000
Finland | 95,000 | 97,000
France | 217,600 | 567,600
French Indochina | -- | 1-1,500,000
Germany | 5,533,000 | 6,600,000-8,800,000
Greece | 20,000-35,000 | 300,000-800,000
Hungary | 300,000 | 580,000
India | 87,000 | 1,500,000-2,500,000
Italy | 301,400 | 457,000
Japan | 2,120,000 | 2,600,000-3,100,000
Korea | -- | 378,000-473,000
Latvia | -- | 227,000
Lithuania | -- | 353,000
Luxembourg | -- | 2,000
Malaya | -- | 100,000
Netherlands | 17,000 | 301,000
New Zealand | 11,900 | 11,900
Norway | 3,000 | 9,500
Papua New Guinea | -- | 15,000
Philippines | 57,000 | 500,000-1,000,000
Poland | 240,000 | 5,600,000
Rumania | 300,000 | 833,000
Singapore | -- | 50,000
South Africa | 11,900 | 11,900
Soviet Union | 8,800,000-10,700,000 | 24,000,000
United Kingdom | 383,600 | 450,700
United States | 416,800 | 418,500
Yugoslavia | 446,000 | 1,000,000

Battle Deaths | 15,000,000
Civilian Deaths | 45,000,000

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.

Japan's Ambitions in the Pacific

Japan's efforts to establish clear naval and air superiority in the western Pacific first hit a snag in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, when the U.S. fleet turned back a Japanese invasion force headed for New Guinea. Despite the setback, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was convinced his forces enjoyed a numerical advantage over the Americans.

Hoping to replicate the success of the Pearl Harbor attack, Yamamoto decided to seek out and crush the rest of the U.S. Pacific fleet with a surprise attack aimed at the Allied base at Midway Island. Midway is located in the Pacific Ocean almost directly in between the United States and Japan.

After a diversionary attack by a smaller Japanese force on the Aleutian Islands, off the coast of Alaska, Yamamoto planned a three-pronged approach toward Midway. First, an air attack on the island launched from four first-line Japanese aircraft carriers, the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu, commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. Second, an invasion force of ships and soldiers led by Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo. And finally, once expected U.S. reinforcements from Pearl Harbor arrived, a joint strike by Nagumo's forces and Yamamoto's own fleet, which would be waiting 600 miles to the west.

Did you know? Six months before the Battle of Midway, the islands were attacked on December 7, 1941, less than two hours after Pearl Harbor.

U.S. Navy cryptanalysts had begun breaking Japanese communication codes early in 1942, and knew for weeks ahead of time that Japan was planning an attack in the Pacific at a location they called "AF." Suspecting it was Midway, the Navy decided to send out a false message from the base claiming it was short of fresh water. Japan's radio operators sent out a similar message about "AF" soon afterward, confirming the location of the planned attack.

With Japan's fleet so widely dispersed, Yamamoto had to transmit all strategy over the radio, enabling Navy cryptanalysts based in Hawaii to figure out when Japan planned to attack (June 4 or 5) and the planned order of battle of the Imperial Japanese Navy. With this information, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, could develop a plan to combat the invasion.

The Japanese assumed that the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown, which been damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea, would be unavailable at Midway. In fact, the damaged carrier was repaired in only two days at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, and left on May 30 to regroup with other U.S. ships near Midway in preparation for Japan's attack.

The Battle of Midway Begins

After the diversionary Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands on June 3, a group of U.S. B-17 Flying Fortress bombers flew from Midway to attack Kondo's invasion force, which they mistakenly assumed was the main Japanese fleet. This unsuccessful attack marked the first military engagement in the Battle of Midway.

Before dawn the next day, more B-17s left Midway for a second attack on the Japanese invasion force, also unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Nagumo launched the first phase of Japan's attack as planned, sending 108 Japanese warplanes from the four aircraft carriers to strike Midway. After inflicting severe damage to the U.S. base, the first Japanese attack ended by 7 a.m., leaving the airfield still useable and U.S. anti-aircraft defenses still functioning.

Shortly after that, just as his pilots informed Nagumo that another airstrike against the base would be necessary, U.S. aircraft launched from Midway began attacking the four Japanese carriers, without success. As Nagumo was rearming Japanese planes for a second air attack, a Japanese scout plane spotted portions of the U.S. fleet, including USS Yorktown, to the east of Midway. Nagumo switched tactics, ordering planes that were still armed to prepare to attack the U.S. ships once the rest of the Japanese planes returned from Midway.

Meanwhile, a wave of U.S. Devastator torpedo bombers from the U.S. carriers Hornet and Enterprise arrived to attack the Japanese ships. Unescorted by fighter planes, nearly all of them were shot down by Japanese Zero fighters. But about an hour later, as the Japanese refueled and rearmed their planes, another wave of U.S. carrier-launched bombers struck, hitting three Japanese carriers- Akagi, Kaga and Soryu -and setting them ablaze.

In response, Japan's surviving carrier, Hiryu, launched two waves of attacks on the Yorktown, which had to be abandoned but remained afloat. U.S. dive-bombers from all three carriers returned to attack the Hiryu and set it ablaze as well, putting all four Japanese carriers out of commission.

Significance of U.S. Victory in the Battle of Midway

Though major combat in the Battle of Midway was over by the evening of June 4, U.S. troops at sea and on Midway Island continued their attacks on the Japanese over the next two days.

The destroyer USS Hammann provided cover for the disabled carrier Yorktown during salvage operations, but a Japanese submarine arrived on June 6 and launched four torpedoes that struck both U.S. ships. The Hammann sank in minutes; the Yorktown eventually capsized and sank the following day.

On June 6, Yamamoto ordered his ships to retreat, ending the Battle of Midway. In all, Japan had lost as many as 3,000 men (including more than 200 of their most experienced pilots), nearly 300 aircraft, one heavy cruiser and four aircraft carriers in the battle, while the Americans lost the Yorktown and Hammann, along with around 145 aircraft and approximately 360 servicemen.

As a result of the U.S. victory in the Battle of Midway, Japan abandoned its plan to expand its reach in the Pacific, and would remain on the defensive for the remainder of World War II. The battle injected U.S. forces with confidence and drained Japanese morale, turning the tide of war in the Pacific strongly in favor of the Allies.

HISTORY Vault: WWII in HD

Sources

The Battle of Midway, National WWII Museum.

Andrew Lambert, "The Battle of Midway." BBC, February 17, 2011.

1942: The Battle of Midway, CBS News.

The Battle of Midway, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and Battle of Midway National Memorial.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battle of Midway - Location, Outcome & Significance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Battle of Midway was an epic WWII clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World War II: The Battle of Midway | Full Movie (Feature Documentary)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, has been the subject of numerous books and articles since that time, many by scientists and others who participated in the development of the world's first atomic bombs. The personal story of Brigadier General Paul W. Tibbets, who flew the Boeing B-29 Enola Gay, and the individual accounts of its crew members have also been published since that eventful mission a half century ago.

Strangely, however, the story of the second mission, which bombed Nagasaki, has not been fully told, mostly because of the concurrent rush of events leading to Japan's complete surrender. Then, too, it may be because that second A-bomb strike nearly ended disastrously. It further proved the verity of Murphy's Law that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Tibbets, then a colonel in charge of the 509th Composite Group, had honed his unit of 15 B-29 Superfortresses into one of the finest Air Force bombardment outfits ever assembled. Operating from Tinian Island in the Marianas, then considered the largest air base in the world, he and his crew had made a picture-perfect 2,900-mile flight, and had dropped the uranium bomb called 'Little Boy' squarely on target. That single bomb, weighing 8,900 pounds, wiped out nearly five square miles of Hiroshima-60 percent of the city. More than 78,000 of the city's total population of 348,000 were killed; an estimated 51,000 were injured or missing.

It had been an exhausting 12-hour mission. After returning to Tinian, Tibbets was greeted on the tarmac by General Carl Spaatz, commander of the Strategic Air Force, who pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on his rumpled, sweat-stained flying suit. Meanwhile, U.S. President Harry S. Truman was aboard USS Augusta, returning from a conference with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin at Potsdam, Germany. Upon hearing the news, Truman exclaimed, 'This is the greatest thing in history!' He promptly announced to the world the existence of an atomic bomb that had been developed under the code name, 'Manhattan Project.'

The War Department then issued a number of press releases giving the history of the project, information about production facilities, and the biographies of key people. In an unusual example of military and press cooperation, the releases had actually been drafted by William L. Laurence, a science reporter for The New York Times, who had known about the A-bomb for several months prior to the Hiroshima mission. Apprised of the need for complete secrecy, he had visited the production facilities and had followed the group to Tinian.

Within hours, newspapers around the world were carrying stories about the bomb and the principles involved in splitting the atom. They chronicled the bomb's development, the devastation it caused, the role of Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves in directing the Manhattan Project, and the contributions of 30,000 engineers and scientists in solving the mystery of the atom's energy potential.

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was one of the few top leaders who had been totally informed of the bomb's top-secret development every step of the way, and he had approved the target selection. He announced that improvements would be forthcoming soon 'which will increase by several fold the effectiveness' of the Hiroshima bomb.

The populace of the target cities had been warned. Leaflets had been dropped on 11 Japanese cities on July 27, telling the citizens that America was 'in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man.' There had been other warnings given to the Japanese during the preceding weeks, while the Twentieth Air Force's Superforts firebombed the country's principal industrial cities.

But the immense havoc a single bomb could produce was unimaginable, and the warnings were not taken very seriously. Just the day before, July 26, a declaration had been issued at Potsdam that notified the world of the intentions of three of the Allied nations concerning Japan: 'The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets of the west, are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the Allied Nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to resist.

'...We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurance of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.'

The Potsdam Declaration was debated vigorously at the highest levels of the Japanese government. A delegation was sent to Moscow to request that the Soviet Union, then still at peace with Japan, act as mediator. It was hoped that if the Soviets would agree to that role, it might be possible to negotiate terms that would be the most favorable to Japan.

There was great dissension among the Japanese military leaders, for few wanted to submit to a demand for unconditional surrender. Senior diplomats and influential citizens, however, privately urged Marquis Koichi Kido and members of the Japanese cabinet to take advantage of the offer in order to bring a prompt end to the war. On the other hand, War Minister Korechika Anami and the chiefs of the army and navy staffs adamantly refused to accept the terms of the Potsdam agreement. The result was that the Japanese government appeared to ignore the Allied declaration. There was no suspicion that the declaration itself constituted a warning that the most devastating weapon ever devised would be forthcoming. The people of Hiroshima tragically learned otherwise.

Because of the complete disruption of communications in Hiroshima after the atomic attack, the initial reports of damage were meager and fragmentary. While the world waited for their reaction, shocked Japanese officials were trying to grasp the extent of the damage. Meanwhile, President Truman issued the following statement: 'It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes of which has never been seen on this earth.'

It was known that there had been other diplomatic moves, made previously by Japanese emissaries through neutral nations, which intimated that Japan might surrender under certain terms that were unacceptable to America and its allies. But when nothing definitive was heard from the Japanese, plans proceeded to drop the second atomic bomb.

The second mission was designated 'Special Mission No. 16.' A B-29 would carry 'Fat Man,' heavier than Little Boy and more complex. The primary target was Kokura. The secondary target was Nagasaki.

The 509th's Operations Order No. 39 of August 8, 1945, assigned Major Charles W. Sweeney, commanding officer of the 393rd Squadron, as the pilot in command of aircraft No. 297, nicknamed Bockscar. Major James I. Hopkins, Jr., group operations officer, was assigned to fly a second B-29 named Full House, which would carry photographic equipment and scientific personnel. On board would be Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, Winston Churchill's official representative.

Captain Fred Bock, instead of flying his own plane, would pilot The Great Artiste, named for Captain Kermit K. Beahan's ability as a bombardier and his alleged expertise with the opposite sex. That plane would be carrying the same special electronic measuring instruments used when Major Sweeney flew it on the Hiroshima flight. It would also be carrying William L. Laurence, a reporter for The New York Times who had been chosen at the inception of the Manhattan Project. His reporting would win him a Pulitzer Prize. A fourth aircraft was to proceed to Iwo Jima and stand by in case of an early abort by either of the backup aircraft.

Two weather observation planes were to proceed to the target areas one hour ahead of the strike aircraft. Since the order was to bomb visually for the greatest accuracy, it was essential that the area be visible to the bombardier.

Sweeney's crew normally had 10 men. Three others were added: Lt. Cmdr. Frederick L. Ashworth, U.S. Navy, the weaponeer in charge of the bomb; his assistant, Lieutenant Phillip M. Barnes; and the radar-countermeasures specialist, Lieutenant Jacob Beser. Captain Charles D. Albury was the copilot; Lieutenant Frederick J. Olivi, a third pilot; Captain James F. Van Pelt, Jr., navigator; Captain Kermit Beahan, bombardier; Staff Sgt. Abe M. Spitzer, radioman; Staff Sgt. Edward K. Buckley, radar operator; Staff Sgt. Albert T. DeHart, central fire control gunner; Master Sgt. John D. Kuharek, flight engineer; and Staff Sgt. Raymond G. Gallagher, mechanic/gunner. Beser was the only man who flew on both atomic bomb missions as a member of the crew of the strike aircraft. Many of the others in the formation, including Sweeney, had flown the other aircraft on the Hiroshima flight.

The crews of the 509th had trained together for almost a year under top-secret conditions. They had first gathered at Wendover Field, an isolated base in western Utah, and then had flown individual long-range, over-water navigation missions from Batista Field, Cuba. The personnel of the 509th moved to Tinian by air and sea in late May and early June 1945, where their top-secret status was the subject of much curiosity and constant ribbing. The crews designated for the atomic missions practiced by dropping giant 10,000-pound 'pumpkins' on 12 Japanese targets. Each pumpkin contained 5,500 pounds of explosives.

The B-29s of the 509th had been modified to deliver the atomic bomb and were thus unable to carry conventional bombs. Instead, they carried the pumpkins, painted orange and shaped like Fat Man. The pumpkins also had been used during their Stateside training. Proximity fuses that produced an air burst, a feature of the atomic bombs, were installed. About 45 of the pumpkin bombs had been brought from the States. According to Tibbets, his crews were so accurate with them that Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, then commanding the Twentieth Air Force, ordered 100 more.

The carefully planned elements of one of the world's most singular air units came together on schedule, backed by the highest national priority for supplies. The two atomic bombs were the result of the work of thousands of people. They had accepted the responsibility to try to split the atom, and to explore its potential as a bomb that could be controlled and released on demand.

The development of the atomic bomb can be said to have begun in the 1920s and early 1930s. It was then that several physicists, most of them in Europe, originated theories about ways to unlock the energy they believed existed within the atom. One of those physicists was Leo Szilard, a Hungarian who had fled from Nazi Germany to England in 1933. Szilard theorized that 'in certain circumstances, it might be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction, liberate energy on an industrial scale and construct atomic bombs.' He urged British officials to conduct research to prove or disprove his theory.

Meanwhile, two German physicists, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, experimented with radioactive uranium in an effort to produce a chain reaction. Meitner fled from Nazi Germany to Sweden in 1938 and, together with Otto Frisch, passed the results of their experiments to physicist Niels Bohr, who left soon after for the United States. Bohr contacted Albert Einstein, also a refugee scientist, and winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize for physics, to explain the military potential of atomic energy.

Einstein, by then well-known in America, wrote a letter in August 1939 to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 'Some recent work,' his letter said, '...leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future and it is conceivable...that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed.'

Roosevelt appointed a group of scientists to an advisory committee on uranium, but at the time there was no real stimulus to proceed with any definitive action. Meanwhile, scientists in Germany and Japan were also considering the potential of atomic energy for war use. It took the attack on Pearl Harbor to stir the United States into action.

In 1942, Dr. Vannevar Bush, head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, confirmed to the president that an atomic weapon could be developed. The Manhattan Project was authorized. General Leslie R. Groves, a tough, no-nonsense Army Corps of Engineers officer, was put in charge.

Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist working with a team of fellow scientists at the University of Chicago, built the first nuclear reactor on a squash court under the stands of the university's football stadium. On December 2, 1942, the world's first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear reaction was achieved.

There were at least two methods that could be used to produce an explosion, both expensive but possible. Extensive facilities were built at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash., to produce uranium and plutonium, the fissionable material needed for the bombs. A central laboratory to design both bombs was established at the so-called Site Y near Los Alamos, N.M., with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer in charge.

Little Boy, 10 feet long and 28 inches in diameter, was similar to a gun in which a 'bullet' made of uranium 235 was fired into a target also of uranium 235. When the two collided, a supercritical mass was attained, and a chain reaction and explosion would occur. No preliminary firing tests were made.

Fat Man measured 10 feet 8 inches long and 5 feet in diameter. It contained a sphere of plutonium. Conventional explosives surrounding the plutonium were fired so that the plutonium was compressed into a supercritical mass, producing a chain reaction and an explosion. Fat Man was tested in the New Mexico desert, near Alamogordo, on July 16, 1945. A blinding explosion, the world's first nuclear blast, was equivalent to 18,600 tons of TNT. By the time the more complicated Fat Man had been tested, most of Little Boy's elements were already en route to Tinian.

After Tibbets returned from Hiroshima, Sweeney's crews watched as Fat Man was loaded on August 8. Sweeney's greatest fear, he said later, was of 'goofing up.' He said, 'I'd rather face the Japanese than Tibbets in shame if I made a stupid mistake.'

Sweeney did not make any 'stupid mistakes,' but the second atomic mission seemed jinxed from the start. When queried recently, General Tibbets called the second mission a 'fiasco' through no fault of Sweeney's.

The two target cities had been carefully selected. They had purposely not been bombed heavily by LeMay's B-29s so that, as the after-action report noted, 'The assessment of the atomic bomb damage would not be confused by having to eliminate previous incendiary or high explosive damage.'

Kokura, on the northeast corner of Kyushu, was chosen as the primary target for Fat Man because it was the enemy's principal production source for automatic weapons. It was also the site of the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works and was one of the largest shipbuilding and naval centers in Japan.

Nagasaki, the secondary target, was the third largest city on Kyushu. It was also one of Japan's leading shipbuilding and repair centers. It was not considered a completely 'virgin' target, however, because it had been bombed many weeks before by Twentieth Air Force bombers. Niigata was originally considered as a third target, but it was too far away from the other two cities.

The crews were given their final briefing during the early morning hours of August 9. They would cruise-climb to the bombing altitude of 31,000 feet. Meanwhile, the two weather planes would report the conditions over both targets. Radio silence between the bombers was to be absolute. If any of the planes had to ditch, rescue ships and submarines were in position; also, aircraft were on alert, to be dispatched to locate a downed plane or its crew.

With his airplane stripped of all armament except two .50-caliber tail guns, Sweeney lifted Bockscar off at 3:49 a.m., Tinian time. The flight route to Kokura was originally planned to proceed via Iwo Jima, but bad weather forced a change to Yaku-Shima in the Ryukus. En route, Commander Ashworth armed Fat Man.

When Bockscar arrived at the rendezvous point, only The Great Artiste was there. Due to poor visibility, Hopkins, in Full House, had lost contact with the other planes.

It had been agreed that Sweeney would not linger more than 15 minutes over the rendezvous point, but he circled for 45 minutes looking for Hopkins. Meanwhile, Hopkins was circling at another point many miles to the south. Breaking radio silence, Hopkins called out, 'Chuck, where in the hell are you?'

Sweeney did not answer. Frustrated, he told the crew, 'We can't wait any longer,' and turned toward Kokura with the single B-29 escort. He wanted the mission to be a complete success, but it would be difficult to call it that if the explosion were not properly documented by the photography that the equipment on Hopkins' plane would produce. Meanwhile, in the bomb bay, something had gone wrong. The black box containing the electrical switches that armed the bomb had a red light. As long as the light blinked in a regular rhythm, it meant that the bomb was properly armed. If it blinked irregularly, something was malfunctioning.

Lieutenant Barnes, the electronics test officer, was the first to notice that the red light suddenly began to flash wildly. He and Ashworth frantically removed the black box's cover to search for the trouble. Quickly tracing all the wiring, Barnes found the problem: the wiring on two small rotary switches had been reversed somehow. He quickly hooked them properly. It could have been worse. If it had been the timing fuses, they would have had less than one minute to find the trouble before Fat Man might have gone off.

Although Sweeney had heard fragmentary reports that the weather over Kokura would be favorable for visual bombing, it wasn't. Instead of the three-tenths cloud cover originally reported, the city was now obscured by heavy cloud cover. In addition, smoke from a firebomb raid the previous night on nearby Yawata made conditions worse. Staff Sergeant DeHart, in the tail-gun position, reported flak 'wide, but altitude is perfect.' Fighters were detected on radar; Staff Sgt. Gallagher thought he saw fighters through the haze.

Lieutenant Olivi recalled what happened next: 'We spent about 50 minutes and made three passes from different directions, but Beahan [the bombardier] reported he couldn't bomb visually. It was at this time that the crew chief [Master Sgt. Kuharek] reported that the 600 gallons of fuel in the bomb bay auxiliary tanks could not be transferred. We needed that extra 600 gallons badly.'

They had no choice now. After conferring with Ashworth, Sweeney turned toward Nagasaki, hoping that the weather there was better. When they arrived, the city was obscured by nine-tenths cloud cover with very few holes. Ashworth and Sweeney considered bombing by radar against orders. Despite the risk of having an armed bomb aboard, they had been ordered to bring it back if they could not bomb visually. Niigata, the unofficial tertiary target, was too far away, especially considering their reduced fuel supply. No one wanted to have to ditch in the East China Sea or try to land on Okinawa, the nearest friendly base, with the armed Fat Man aboard.

'We started an approach [to Nagasaki],' Olivi said, 'but Beahan couldn't see the target area [in the city east of the harbor]. Van Pelt, the navigator, was checking by radar to make sure we had the right city, and it looked like we would be dropping the bomb automatically by radar. At the last few seconds of the bomb run, Beahan yelled into his mike, 'I've got a hole! I can see it! I can see the target!' Apparently, he had spotted an opening in the clouds only 20 seconds before releasing the bomb.'

In his debriefing later, Beahan told Tibbets, 'I saw my aiming point; there was no problem about it. I got the cross hairs on it; I'd killed my rate; I'd killed my drift. The bomb had to go.'

When Beahan shouted, 'Bombs away!' over the intercom, Sweeney wheeled the B-29 around in a sharp, 60-degree left bank and turned 150 degrees away from the area as they had all practiced many times before. Approximately 50 seconds after release, a bright flash lit up the cockpit, where everyone had donned dark goggles. 'It was more dazzling than sunlight,' according to Olivi, 'even with my Polaroid glasses on. I could see fires starting and dust and smoke spreading in all directions. An ugly-looking mushroom began to emerge from the center. It spread and began rising directly toward our B-29.

'Right after the blast, we had lunged downward and away from the radioactive cloud. We felt three separate shock waves, the first being the most severe. As the mushroom cloud kept on climbing toward us, bright flames, a sickly pink, were shooting out of its interior. I had a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were going to be enveloped by the cloud. We had been warned many times about the possibility of radiation poisoning if we flew into it.

'Actually, I think the mushroom cloud missed us by about 125 yards before we pulled away from it. The briefings and all the practice we had on evasive tactics now had special meaning.'

Reporter Laurence, flying nearby in The Great Artiste, was transfixed in awe at the scene. 'We watched a giant pillar of purple fire, 10,000 feet high, shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space,' he wrote later in his award-winning book Dawn Over Zero. 'It was no longer smoke, or dust, or even a cloud of fire. It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes.

'Even as we watched, a giant mushroom came shooting out of the top to 45,000 feet, a mushroom top that was even more alive than the pillar, seething and boiling in a white fury of creamy foam, a thousand geysers rolled into one. It kept struggling in an elemental fury, like a creature in the act of breaking the bonds that held it down.

'When we last saw it, it had changed its shape into a flowerlike form, its giant petals curving downward, creamy white outside, rose-colored inside. The boiling pillar had become a giant mountain of jumbled rainbows. Much living substance had gone into those rainbows.'

Major Hopkins saw the column of smoke from 100 miles away and flew toward the area after the explosion. However, the area was completely covered by clouds and smoke, hence no ground damage could be observed.

Sweeney made one wide circle of the mushroom cloud, then headed toward Tinian. Now they had a new danger confronting them. The fuel was dangerously low. They changed course for Okinawa with everyone on the flight deck watching the fuel gauges on Kuharek's flight engineer console. Sweeney had pulled the props back to a range-extending low rpm and leaned out the fuel mixture controls as far back as he dared while he descended; he figured they would land about 50 miles short of the island. Even when they spotted Yontan Field, it still seemed likely they would have to ditch short of the runway.

While Sweeney flew, Albury called the tower for landing instructions. He received no reply. He broadcast a Mayday while Sweeney told Van Pelt and Olivi to fire every emergency flare on board. No one seemed to pay any attention. In desperation, Sweeney took the mike and shouted, 'I'm coming straight in!'

'Someone must have gotten the message,' Olivi recalled, 'because when we lined up on the approach, we could see emergency equipment racing out to the runway. We had only enough gas for one pass, so if we didn't make it, we were going to end up in the ocean.

'Sweeney came in high and fast-too fast. Normal landing speed for the B-29 was about 130 mph. We used up half the strip before we touched down at about 150 mph, a dangerous speed, with nearly empty gas tanks.

'As we touched down, the plane began to swerve to the left and we nearly plowed into a line of B-24s parked along the active runway. Sweeney finally brought the plane under control, and as we taxied off the runway the No. 2 engine quit. Ambulance, staff cars, jeeps, and fire engines quickly surrounded us and a bunch of very jittery people debarked, very glad to be safe on the ground.'

What Olivi did not mention was that the airplane used up all of the runway trying to come to a halt. Sweeney stood on the brakes and made a swerving 90-degree turn at the end of the runway to avoid going over the cliff into the ocean. Beser recalled that two engines had died, while 'the centrifugal force resulting from the turn was almost enough to put us through the side of the airplane.'

Kuharek, before refilling the tanks, estimated that there were exactly seven gallons left in them. The Nagasaki mission had taken 101ž2 hours from the takeoff at Tinian to the landing at Okinawa. After they landed, the crewmen were told that the Russians had just entered the war against Japan.

For Sweeney and his crew, a nagging question haunted all of them: Had they hit the target? Ashworth didn't think they had. In his anxiety about obeying the order to bomb visually, Beahan had released the weapon about 11ž2 miles northeast of the city, up the valley of the Urakami River. The bomb had exploded over the center of the industrial area, not the densely populated residential area.

While their Superfort was being gassed, Sweeney and Ashworth commandeered a jeep and went to the base communications center to send a report to Tinian. They were refused permission to send such a message without the commanding general's personal permission. Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle had been newly sent to Okinawa to oversee the arrival of Eighth Air Force units from Europe to prepare them for future combat.

Doolittle, not privy to any of the A-bomb plans or operations, listened intently as Sweeney and Ashworth explained what had happened. Both men were nervous about telling a three-star general that they did not believe the bomb had hit the target directly. As they talked, Doolittle pulled out a map of Japan where they pointed out the industrial area over which they thought the bomb had exploded. Doolittle said, reassuringly, 'I'm sure General Spaatz will be much happier that the bomb went off in the river valley rather than over the city with the resulting much lower number of casualties.' He promptly authorized the communications section to send Sweeney's coded after-action report.

Sweeney and his crew, thoroughly exhausted, took off for Tinian after a three-hour layover, and arrived there about midnight. Sweeney received the Distinguished Service Cross as pilot-in-command. All of the other crew members received the Distinguished Flying Cross as 'members of a B-29 aircraft carrying the second atomic bomb employed in the history of warfare....Despite a rapidly dwindling gasoline reserve, they reached the target and released the bomb on the important industrial city of Nagasaki with devastating effect. The power of this missile was so great as to threaten the disintegration of the aircraft if it had been detonated while still in the bomb bay by a burst of flak, or a hit by enemy fighters, or if it was dropped while the B-29 was close to the ground, as might have occurred during engine failure.'

In his 1962 book, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, General Groves answered the question about the results of the Nagasaki mission: 'Because of the bad weather conditions at the target, we could not get good photo reconnaissance pictures until almost a week later. They showed 44 percent of the city destroyed. The difference between the results obtained there and at Hiroshima was due to the unfavorable terrain at Nagasaki, where the ridges and valleys limited the area of greatest destruction to 2.3 miles by 1.9 miles. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey later estimated the casualties at 35,000 killed and 60,000 injured.'

The force of the Fat Man explosion was estimated at 22,000 tons of TNT. The steep hills had confined the larger explosion. Although the industrial area had been flattened, it caused less loss of life than Little Boy.

The events that followed the Nagasaki mission happened quickly. Russia declared war on Japan on August 9. On that day, Emperor Hirohito spoke to the Japanese Supreme Council. 'I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any longer,' he said. 'Ending the war is the only way to restore world peace and to relieve the nation from the terrible distress with which it is burdened.'

The Japanese announced their acceptance of unconditional surrender on August 14. World War II officially ended at 10:30 a.m. Tokyo time, September 2, 1945, when Japanese emissaries signed the surrender document aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Although a few pumpkin bombing missions were flown by the 509th between the second A-bomb drop and the surrender announcement on August 14, for all practical purposes, the Nagasaki mission had ended the war. *

This article was written by C.V. Glines and originally published in the January 1997 issue of Aviation History Magazine.

For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History Magazine today!

Sponsored Content:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, has been the subject of numerous books and articles since that time, many by scientists and others who participated in the development of the world's first atomic bombs. The personal story of Brigadier General Paul W.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Letter That Led to the Atomic Bomb | Genius

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tehran Conference

Prior to the Yalta Conference, the three leaders met in November 1943 in Tehran, Iran, where they coordinated the next phase of war against the Axis Powers in Europe and the Pacific.

At the Tehran Conference, the United States and Britain had committed to launching an invasion of northern France in mid-1944, opening another front of the war against Nazi Germany. Stalin, meanwhile, had agreed in principle to join the war against Japan in the Pacific after Germany was defeated.

By February 1945, as Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered again at Yalta, an Allied victory in Europe was on the horizon. Having liberated France and Belgium from Nazi occupation, the Allies now threatened the German border; to the east, Soviet Union troops had driven back the Germans in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and gotten within 40 miles of Berlin.

This put Stalin at a distinct advantage during the meeting at the Black Sea resort, a location he himself had proposed after insisting his doctors had barred him from traveling long distances.

Pacific War

While the war in Europe was winding down, Roosevelt knew the United States still faced a protracted struggle against Japan in the Pacific War, and wanted to confirm Soviet support in an effort to limit the length of and casualties sustained in that conflict. At Yalta, Stalin agreed that Soviet forces would join the Allies in the war against Japan within "two or three months" after Germany's surrender.

In return for its support in the Pacific War, the other Allies agreed, the Soviet Union would gain control of Japanese territory it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, including southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuril Islands.

Stalin also demanded that the United States grant diplomatic recognition of Mongolia's independence from China: the Mongolian People's Republic, founded in 1924, was a Soviet satellite.
WATCH VIDEO: FDR: The War Years
Division of Germany

At Yalta, the Big Three agreed that after Germany's unconditional surrender, it would be divided into four post-war occupation zones, controlled by U.S., British, French and Soviet military forces. The city of Berlin would also be divided into similar occupation zones.

France's leader, Charles de Gaulle, was not invited to the Yalta Conference, and Stalin agreed to include France in the post-war governing of Germany only if France's zone of occupation was taken from the US and British zones.

The Allied leaders also determined that Germany should be completely demilitarized and "denazified," and that it would assume some responsibility for post-war reparations, but not sole responsibility.

Poland and Eastern Europe

Stalin took a hard line on the question of Poland, pointing out that within three decades, Germany had twice used the nation as a corridor through which to invade Russia. He declared that the Soviet Union would not return the territory in Poland that it had annexed in 1939, and would not meet the demands of the Polish government-in-exile based in London.

Stalin did agree to allow representatives from other Polish political parties into the communist-dominated provisional government installed in Poland, and to sanction free elections there-one of Churchill's key objectives.

In addition, the Soviets promised to allow free elections in all territories in Eastern Europe liberated from Nazi occupation, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

In return, the United States and Britain agreed that future governments in Eastern European nations bordering Soviet Union should be "friendly" to the Soviet regime, satisfying Stalin's desire for a zone of influence to provide a buffer against future conflicts in Europe.

United Nations

At Yalta, Stalin agreed to Soviet participation in the United Nations, the international peacekeeping organization that Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed to form in 1941 as part of the Atlantic Charter. He gave this commitment after all three leaders had agreed on a plan whereby all permanent members of the organization's Security Council would hold veto power.

Having discussed these key issues, the Big Three agreed to meet again after Germany's surrender, in order to finalize the borders of post-war Europe and other outstanding questions.

"There is no doubt that the tide of Anglo-Soviet-American friendship had reached a new high," wrote James Byrnes, who accompanied Roosevelt to Yalta, in his memoirs. Though Roosevelt and Churchill also considered the Yalta Conference an indication that their wartime cooperation with the Soviets would continue in peacetime, such optimism would prove to be short-lived.

Impact of the Yalta Conference

By March 1945, it had become clear that Stalin had no intention of keeping his promises regarding political freedom in Poland. Instead, Soviet troops helped squash any opposition to the provisional government based in Lublin, Poland. When elections were finally held in 1947, they predictably solidified Poland as one of the first Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe.

Many Americans criticized Roosevelt-who was seriously ill during the Yalta Conference and died just two months later-for the concessions he made at Yalta regarding Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia.

President Harry Truman, Roosevelt's successor, would be far more suspicious of Stalin that July, when the leaders of the Allied powers met again at the Potsdam Conference in Germany to hash out the final terms for ending World War II in Europe.

But with his troops occupying much of Germany and Eastern Europe, Stalin was able to effectively ratify the concessions he won at Yalta, pressing his advantage over Truman and Churchill (who was replaced mid-conference by Prime Minister Clement Attlee).

In March 1946, barely a year after the Yalta Conference, Churchill delivered his famous speech declaring that an " iron curtain" had fallen across Eastern Europe, signaling a definitive end to cooperation between the Soviet Union and its Western allies, and the beginning of the Cold War.
READ MORE: How the 'Big Three' Teed Up the Cold War at the 1945 Yalta Conference
Sources

The Yalta Conference 1945. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State.
Terry Charman, "How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin Planned to End the Second World War." Imperial War Museums, January 12, 2018.
The End of World War II and the Division of Europe. Center for European Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yalta Conference: Definition, Date & Outcome - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Yalta Conference of 1945 was an historic meeting of three World War II allies: U.S. President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill and Soviet Premier Stalin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Road to the Nuremberg Trials

Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor of Germany in 1933, he and his Nazi government began implementing policies designed to persecute German-Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state. Over the next decade, these policies grew increasingly repressive and violent and resulted, by the end of World War II (1939-45), in the systematic, state-sponsored murder of some 6 million European Jews (along with an estimated 4 million to 6 million non-Jews).

Did you know? The death sentences imposed in October 1946 were carried out by Master Sergeant John C. Woods (1903-50), who told a reporter from Time magazine that he was proud of his work. "The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it . . . 10 men in 103 minutes. That's fast work."

In December 1942, the Allied leaders of Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union "issued the first joint declaration officially noting the mass murder of European Jewry and resolving to prosecute those responsible for violence against civilian populations," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), the Soviet leader, initially proposed the execution of 50,000 to 100,000 German staff officers. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) discussed the possibility of summary execution (execution without a trial) of high-ranking Nazis, but was persuaded by American leaders that a criminal trial would be more effective. Among other advantages, criminal proceedings would require documentation of the crimes charged against the defendants and prevent later accusations that the defendants had been condemned without evidence.

There were many legal and procedural difficulties to overcome in setting up the Nuremberg trials. First, there was no precedent for an international trial of war criminals. There were earlier instances of prosecution for war crimes, such as the execution of Confederate army officer Henry Wirz (1823-65) for his maltreatment of Union prisoners of war during the American Civil War (1861-65); and the courts-martial held by Turkey in 1919-20 to punish those responsible for the Armenian genocide of 1915-16. However, these were trials conducted according to the laws of a single nation rather than, as in the case of the Nuremberg trials, a group of four powers (France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S.) with different legal traditions and practices.

The Allies eventually established the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials with the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), issued on August 8, 1945. Among other things, the charter defined three categories of crimes: crimes against peace (including planning, preparing, starting or waging wars of aggression or wars in violation of international agreements), war crimes (including violations of customs or laws of war, including improper treatment of civilians and prisoners of war) and crimes against humanity (including murder, enslavement or deportation of civilians or persecution on political, religious or racial grounds). It was determined that civilian officials as well as military officers could be accused of war crimes.

The city of Nuremberg (also known as Nurnberg) in the German state of Bavaria was selected as the location for the trials because its Palace of Justice was relatively undamaged by the war and included a large prison area. Additionally, Nuremberg had been the site of annual Nazi propaganda rallies; holding the postwar trials there marked the symbolic end of Hitler's government, the Third Reich.

The Major War Criminals' Trial: 1945-46

The best-known of the Nuremberg trials was the Trial of Major War Criminals, held from November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946. The format of the trial was a mix of legal traditions: There were prosecutors and defense attorneys according to British and American law, but the decisions and sentences were imposed by a tribunal (panel of judges) rather than a single judge and a jury. The chief American prosecutor was Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Each of the four Allied powers supplied two judges-a main judge and an alternate.

Twenty-four individuals were indicted, along with six Nazi organizations determined to be criminal (such as the "Gestapo," or secret state police). One of the indicted men was deemed medically unfit to stand trial, while a second man killed himself before the trial began. Hitler and two of his top associates, Heinrich Himmler (1900-45) and Joseph Goebbels (1897-45), had each committed suicide in the spring of 1945 before they could be brought to trial. The defendants were allowed to choose their own lawyers, and the most common defense strategy was that the crimes defined in the London Charter were examples of ex post facto law; that is, they were laws that criminalized actions committed before the laws were drafted. Another defense was that the trial was a form of victor's justice-the Allies were applying a harsh standard to crimes committed by Germans and leniency to crimes committed by their own soldiers.

As the accused men and judges spoke four different languages, the trial saw the introduction of a technological innovation taken for granted today: instantaneous translation. IBM provided the technology and recruited men and women from international telephone exchanges to provide on-the-spot translations through headphones in English, French, German and Russian.

In the end, the international tribunal found all but three of the defendants guilty. Twelve were sentenced to death, one in absentia, and the rest were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life behind bars. Ten of the condemned were executed by hanging on October 16, 1946. Hermann Göring (1893-1946), Hitler's designated successor and head of the "Luftwaffe" (German air force), committed suicide the night before his execution with a cyanide capsule he had hidden in a jar of skin medication.

Subsequent Trials: 1946-49

Following the Trial of Major War Criminals, there were 12 additional trials held at Nuremberg. These proceedings, lasting from December 1946 to April 1949, are grouped together as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. They differed from the first trial in that they were conducted before U.S. military tribunals rather than the international tribunal that decided the fate of the major Nazi leaders. The reason for the change was that growing differences among the four Allied powers had made other joint trials impossible. The subsequent trials were held in the same location at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.

These proceedings included the Doctors Trial (December 9, 1946-August 20, 1947), in which 23 defendants were accused of crimes against humanity, including medical experiments on prisoners of war. In the Judges Trial (March 5-December 4, 1947), 16 lawyers and judges were charged with furthering the Nazi plan for racial purity by implementing the eugenics laws of the Third Reich. Other subsequent trials dealt with German industrialists accused of using slave labor and plundering occupied countries; high-ranking army officers accused of atrocities against prisoners of war; and SS officers accused of violence against concentration-camp inmates. Of the 185 people indicted in the subsequent Nuremberg trials, 12 defendants received death sentences, 8 others were given life in prison and an additional 77 people received prison terms of varying lengths, according to the USHMM. Authorities later reduced a number of the sentences.

Aftermath

The Nuremberg trials were controversial even among those who wanted the major criminals punished. Harlan Stone (1872-1946), chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court at the time, described the proceedings as a "sanctimonious fraud" and a "high-grade lynching party." William O. Douglas (1898-1980), then an associate U.S. Supreme Court justice, said the Allies "substituted power for principle" at Nuremberg.

Nonetheless, most observers considered the trials a step forward for the establishment of international law. The findings at Nuremberg led directly to the United Nations Genocide Convention (1948) and Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), as well as the Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War (1949). In addition, the International Military Tribunal supplied a useful precedent for the trials of Japanese war criminals in Tokyo (1946-48); the 1961 trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann (1906-62); and the establishment of tribunals for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (1993) and in Rwanda (1994).

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nuremberg Trials - Definition, Dates & Purpose

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949 to try those accused of Nazi war crimes. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers, etc., were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Nuremberg Trials | Viking River Cruises

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For the interactive version, ticket payments, and more: http://fallen.io

An animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, The Fallen of World War II looks at the human cost of the second World War and sizes up the numbers to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts.


Written, directed, coded, narrated by https://twitter.com/neilhalloran
Sound and music by https://twitter.com/Dolhaz

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is hard to say with exact certainty how many people were killed during World War II, but estimates vary between 50 million to over 80 million. One thing that everybody agree with is that it has been the deadliest war ever, wiping out around 3 percent of the world population at the time.

Fatalities:

It is estimated that around 15,000,000 soldiers died in battle during WW2. Military deaths, which include soldiers missing in action as well as falatities due to disease, accidents and prisoners of war deaths along with battle deaths, are estimated to be between 22,000,000 to 30,000,000. Civilian deaths, including Holocaust victims and those killed through crimes against humanity, strategic bombing and population transfers are estimated to 19,000,000 and 30,000,000. Civillians killed by war-related diseases and famine counted between 19,000,000 and 25,000,000.

Countries with the Highest Fatalities

According to estimates, the Soviet Union suffered the highest amount of total deaths (including military and civilian) with between 21,800,000 and 28,000,00 dying during WW2. China is second with between 10,000,000
and 20,000,000 (although some say that the civillian toll might have been much higher) and then Germany with between 7,000,000 to 9,000,000 deaths. Other countries that suffered between 2,000,000 and 6,000,000 deaths include Poland, Dutch East Indies, Japan and India.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Many People Died in World War 2? - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is hard to say with exact certainty how many people were killed during World War II, but estimates vary between 50 million to over 80 million. One thing that everybody agree with is that it has been the deadliest war ever, wiping out around 3 percent of the world population at the time.

# data[].attributes.body
Honestly how I feel about the war is that is that the war probably could have been prevented if Hitler didn't go and violate the treaty of Versailles. Basically the declaration of war all started because Hitler and him thinking that he had the bigger power. But I did learn about all the battles that were fought way before ww2 and even the ones during and after the war. And how they affected many parts of the world including France and Japan.

# data[].attributes.body
I've learned a lot from WW2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Contents

1. Herman Göring and the Luftwaffe

2. Operation Sea Lion

3. Churchill's "Finest Hour" Speech

4. Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Messerschmitt BF-109

5. Blitz Begins

6. Who Won the Battle of Britain?

7. Why Did the British Win the Battle of Britain?

8. Significance of the Battle of Britain

9. The Battle of Britain Movie

The Battle of Britain in World War II was between Britain's Royal Air Force ( RAF) and the Luftwaffe, Nazi Germany's air force, and was the first battle in history fought solely in the air. From July 10 through October 31, 1940, pilots and support crews on both sides took to the skies and battled for control of airspace over Great Britain, Germany and the English Channel. The powerful, combat-experienced Luftwaffe hoped to conquer Britain easily, but the RAF proved a formidable enemy.
WATCH: World War II Documentaries on HISTORY Vault
Herman Göring and the Luftwaffe

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have an air force. With the help of the Soviet Union, however, Germany secretly defied the treaty and trained air force pilots and support staff on combat planes.

When Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich came to power, Nazi Germany began rebuilding their air force. He officially created the Luftwaffe in February 1935, placing former World War I fighter pilot and political ally Hermann Göring in charge.
WATCH VIDEO: Winston S. Churchill
Operation Sea Lion

By the start of World War II in 1939, the Luftwaffe was the strongest and best-trained air force in the world. They played a crucial role in Germany's swift, methodical and highly effective blitzkrieg invasion of much of Western Europe, including Poland, Holland, Belgium and France.

After France fell to Germany on June 22, 1940, Hitler set his sights on the Soviet Union but still had to contend with Great Britain. He planned a massive invasion by land and sea, code named Operation Sea Lion, but knew he needed to defeat the RAF first.

Hitler hoped his Luftwaffe and its fierce reputation would intimidate Britain enough that they would surrender peacefully, and even dangled the prospect of a peace treaty. However, he underestimated the resolve of Britain's people, its military and its combative new prime minister, Winston Churchill, who rejected the offer outright.

Churchill believed Hitler and the evils of Nazism had to be abolished no matter what. He knew that the RAF was Britain's main defense against German troops crossing the English Channel.

Did you know? The battle received its name from a speech Winston Churchill delivered to the British House of Commons on June 18, 1940, in which he stated, "the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

Churchill's "Finest Hour" Speech

Days before France's surrender, Churchill gave his famous " Finest Hour" speech to the House of Commons, making it clear he had no intention of capitulating to Hitler, although some members of Parliament hoped to negotiate peace.

In his speech, Churchill said, "the Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin." He spoke of his certainty that the Luftwaffe would attack Britain hard, but also his confidence that the RAF, commanded by Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, would hold their own and be victorious.

Churchill knew failure was not an option, and his powerful speech boosted the morale and patriotism of the British people, its military and Parliament.
READ MORE: 10 Things You May Not Know About Winston Churchill
Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Messerschmitt BF-109

Hitler and many of his generals were unprepared to invade Britain. Göring, however, was confident his Luftwaffe would quickly destroy the RAF with his German bombers and prevent, or at least postpone, the need for a full-scale invasion; Hitler gave him the go-ahead to prove it.

On July 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe attacked Britain, performing reconnaissance missions and targeting coastal defenses, ports and radar stations. Their efforts, however, did little damage to the RAF.

In mid-August, using mostly single-engine Messerschmitt BF-109 combat planes, the Luftwaffe began attacking Britain's airfields, air fighter production sites and targeting RAF Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes in the air.

Blitz Begins

Despite being outnumbered, the RAF retaliated by bombing Berlin. Enraged, Hitler and Göring changed tactics and ordered a bombing campaign known as " the Blitz " against London, Liverpool, Coventry and other major cities, hoping to decimate the morale of the British people. To ensure massive casualties and to avoid aerial dogfights between the RAF and the Luftwaffe, German bombing was carried out at night.

On September 15, the Luftwaffe began two massive raids on London, eager to force the British to the negotiating table, but they could not defeat the RAF or gain control of British airspace. The Luftwaffe was by then stretched too thin, poorly organized and unable to keep up with the demand for new fighter planes or overcome the RAF's superior technology.

Who Won the Battle of Britain?

By the end of October 1940, Hitler called off his planned invasion of Britain and the Battle of Britain ended. Both sides suffered enormous loss of life and aircraft. Still, Britain weakened the Luftwaffe and prevented Germany from achieving air superiority. It was the first major defeat of the war for Hitler.

Although Britain stood alone against Germany after the fall of France, nearly a quarter of the RAF pilots who participated in the Battle of Britain were from other countries including Poland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, the United States and South Africa.

Why Did the British Win the Battle of Britain?

The British won the Battle of Britain due to a confluence of factors. They were defending their home territory, so were more motivated to succeed, and also knew the local geography better than the invaders.

Another major factor was the Dowding System, named after Sir Hugh Dowding, Commander in Chief of the RAF Fighting Command. The Dowding System's pioneering use of radar (which could warn the RAF of enemy attacks), aircraft and ground defense gave Great Britain a competitive advantage.

Significance of the Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain was a turning point in World War II; if the RAF had not held off the Luftwaffe, Hitler would have likely moved forward with his Operation Sea Lion land invasion of the British Isles. This would have been devastating to the British people and all efforts to stem Hitler's rise to power. Germany needed to control the English Channel to invade Britain, and the battle prevented them from gaining that valuable control.

Britain's victory in the Battle of Britain demonstrated the courage and resilience of the country's military and its people and allowed them to remain free from Nazi occupation. It also enabled the Americans to establish a base of operations in England to invade Normandy on D-Day in 1944.
READ MORE: D:Day: An Interactive
The Battle of Britain Movie

The Battle of Britain's significance was not lost on Hollywood. In 1969, MGM released the movie The Battle of Britain, starring Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Robert Shaw and Laurence Olivier as commander Hugh Dowding.

Other notable productions include: Battle of Britain, a documentary produced by brothers Colin and Ewan McGregor to mark the event's 70th anniversary; Voices of the Battle of Britain, a documentary which includes first-hand accounts of RAF veterans; and Mission of Honor, a movie which tells the story of RAF Hurricane Squadron 303.

Sources

Battle of Britain. International Churchill Society.
Battle of Britain. WW 2 Facts.
How the Luftwaffe Fought the Battle of Britain. Imperial War Museum.
The Battle of Britain: A Brief Guide. Military History Matters.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Herman Göring and the Luftwaffe Operation Sea Lion Churchill's "Finest Hour" Speech Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Messerschmitt BF-109 Blitz Begins Who Won the Battle of Britain? Why Did the British Win the Battle of Britain?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Race to the coast

A potentially decisive counterattack by two high quality French armoured and motorised divisions fizzled out into some fierce, but ultimately inconclusive fighting. Under the dynamic command of General Heinz Guderian, a pioneer of armoured warfare known euphemistically as 'Hurry-up Heinz', the German Panzers broke out of their bridgehead. They began to race towards the Channel coast, aided by the German aircraft that ruled the skies.

With the bulk of the Allied forces fighting in Belgium, there was little to stop the German forces as they sliced across the Allied supply-lines. The German spearheads reached the English Channel on 20 May.

Lacking a centrally placed strategic reserve, the Allies tried to pull their armies out of Belgium to respond to the new threat emerging in their rear. And the Germans did not have it all their own way, as French forces under Charles de Gaulle showed how vulnerable the flanks of the German forces were to bold counterattacks.

Then at Arras on 21 May, a scratch force of British tanks and infantry gave a rough reception to Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division. Yet this was all too little, too late. With German forces pushing through Belgium and the Panzers looping up from the south and west, the Allies were encircled. The Belgian army surrendered on 28 May, leaving a gaping hole on the British flank of the Allied forces.

Allied high command seemed paralysed. General Weygand replaced General Gamelin as French commander-in-chief, but it made no difference. Then General Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), on 23/4 May took the morally courageous decision to abandon his role in a projected Anglo-French counterattack, and fell back on the Channel ports.

The French, not surprisingly, regarded this as a betrayal, but Gort's decision saved the BEF. Between 26 May and 4 June, a hastily organised evacuation by sea, code-named Operation Dynamo, lifted 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk.

That the German forces failed to press their attack on Dunkirk was largely thanks to grim defence of the Dunkirk perimeter by British and French troops, and the efforts of the much-depleted RAF.

Although as Churchill, who had become Prime Minster on 10 May rightly commented, 'wars are not won by evacuation', Dynamo was a victory of incalculable importance for the BEF. The return of the troops, even without much of their equipment, gave Britain a basis on which to rebuild the Army, sheltering behind the Navy and the RAF. It also strengthened the credibility of Churchill's insistence that Britain would fight on, thus influencing the neutral USA at a time when American aid was vital.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A potentially decisive counterattack by two high quality French armoured and motorised divisions fizzled out into some fierce, but ultimately inconclusive fighting. Under the dynamic command of General Heinz Guderian, a pioneer of armoured warfare known euphemistically as 'Hurry-up Heinz', the German Panzers broke out of their bridgehead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover how the policy of Appeasement, championed by Neville Chamberlain and the League of Nations inevitably led to WW2.