Module 8: World War II - 1939 to 1945

Martina and Terrance visit the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Martina and Terrance took you on a journey through World War II that highlighted how war brings out both the best and the worst in people and countries. You learned how the desire for land and resources led Germany and Japan to invade neighboring countries like Poland and China. The United States followed the idea of isolationism and stayed out of World War II, even while many European countries were captured, and Great Britain was bombed in the Battle of Britain. Not until Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor did the United States join the war.

Once the United States entered the war, the military strategy of the Axis powers of Germany and Japan were focused on quickly defeating their enemies before the industrial and military power of the United States could be brought into the conflict. Conversely, the Allied countries focused their efforts on defeating Hitler first, while the United States also prepared a strategy of “island hopping” to defeat Japan. At home, the United States marshalled its economic, human, and communication resources to help win the war. Women and minorities gained new opportunities to work and participate in the military. African Americans in particular demonstrated that they could fight in the war and still campaign for equality at home.

In the European theatre of war, there were three turning points for the Allies, at El Alamein, Stalingrad, and Normandy. In the Pacific theatre of war, the significant battles were Midway, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and finally the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Both sides committed acts of atrocity during the war. The United States relocated Japanese Americans to internment camps. The Japanese did not always treat prisoners as the Geneva Conventions said they should. By far, the worst atrocity of the war was the Holocaust. Nazi Germany committed genocide against Jews and others, killing more than eleven million people. At the end of the war, during the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi officials were convicted of war crimes, and individual responsibility for actions they took during the war was affirmed. World War II had a profound impact on the world.