Operation Blog is ACTIVE

OK students...this is the platform upon which students will share their knowledge and understanding of the great marker event of 20th century world history: World War 2. The rules are simple:

1. All students must make at least one post to this blog. Posts are in the form of reflections, opinions, links to articles, video, music, images, etc. Students must relate the nature of their posts to a theme of the conflict and make commentary.

2. All students must make at least one comment on another students post. Comments must be thoughtful, argumentative if inclined, insightful, or you my pose some question leads to another post by you or another classmate.

3. You must tag your post with the applicable theme(s).

4. Grades will be based on an holistic scoring scale which heavily weights the frequency and substance of posts and comments. Minimum participation equates to minimum scores for this class exercise.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Holocaust


The most important part of the Holocaust began on January 30, 1933 when Hilter became Chancellor. Shorty in February 1933, there was a big fire at the Reichstag (German Parliament building), without any proof set by an arsonist but possibly set by the Nazis, which gave the Nazis the advantage to secure total powers for Hitler. (note that Hitler was Chancellor that time, not president). Hitler’s boss, President von Hindenburg, an honest and aged World War I German hero, completely disliked Hilter but couldn’t try to prevent him at this stage of the very near end of his life.

Hilter became president and kept the Chancellor position also after von Hindenburg dies. The approval of Hitler’s total powers was put to the German people’s approval by 90%.

The Holocaust actions continued dring 1935-1937. Jews were banned from serving in the military(which they had proudly served in WWI). One event that occurred in 1936 also took pressure off Jew citizens temporarily. In March 1938 Austria fell into Nazi camp as they were forced into a union with Germnay.

1939 was a very active year for the Nazis as they tried to take over Czechoslovakia and started WWII by conquering Poland which contained over 3 million Jews(the largest Jewish population of all country in Europe). It was also a active year in the Holocaust as ill-treatment of the Jews were speeded up.

The WWII holocaust with its curel act against the jews, was one of the most terrible events in the history of mankind. Over 6,000,000 people died in the Holocaust.

Failure of Appeasement


During the 1930s, many politicians in both France and Britain came to see that the terms of the Treaty of Versailles had placed a limiting condition on Germany that were unfair. Hitler’s actions were seen as understandable and justifiable.

When Germany began to re-arm in 1934, many politicians felt that Germany had a right to re-arm to protect their country. It was also argued that a stronger Germany is, the more it would prevent the spread of Communism to the west.

In 1936, Hilter argued that because France had signed a new treaty with Russia, Germany was under threat from both countries and that it was extremely important to German security that troops were stationed in the Rhineland. France was not strong enough to fight Germany without British help and that time Britain was not prepared to go to war. Besides, many believed that since the Rhineland was a part of Germany, it was reasonable that German troops should be stationed at there.

In May 1937, Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minster of Britain. He believed that the Treaty of Versailles had treated Germany badly and that there were a lot of problems involved with the Treaty that need to be put right. He also felt that giving in to Hitler’s demands would cause another war.

This policy, adopted by Chamberlain’s government became to known as the policy of Appeasement.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Here is the common political cartoon associated with the Non-Aggression Pact.



THE CHALLENGE:  Use Soapstone to construct a point of view statement for this cartoon....post it under comments.

Monday, February 22, 2010

This American propaganda encourages their soldiers to continue fighting the Japanese, who are portrayed as killers. The American soldiers are supposed to stay on task and massacre all these murdering Japanese. The picture given in the propaganda and the cutout of the newspaper article further strengthens the proof by the Americans that the Japanese are not worthy to stay alive. Not only does this propaganda distinguish the enemies, but it also motivates the soldiers to fight on...

Sunday, February 21, 2010

History of the Luftwaffe



One of the strongest weapons in Germany is the Luftwaffe. Luftwaffe was one of the strongest, most doctrinally advanced, and most battle-experienced air forces in the world when World War II started in Europe in September 1939.

When the WWII started, Luftwaffe was one of the most modern, powerful and experienced.The Luftwaffe became an essential component in the "Blitzkrieg". Operating as a tactical close support air force, it helped the German armies to conquer the bulk of the European continent in a series of short and decisive campaigns in the first nine months of the war. It experienced its first defeat by "The Few" of the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Battle of Britain in 1940 as it could not adapt into a strategic role.

Sadako Sasaki and The Thousand Paper Cranes


An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who manages to fold a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the crane. The wish may be a long life or recovery from an illness or injury, the crane in Japan is considered to be one of the holiest creatures (other than the dragon and the tortoise), and is said to live for a 1000 years.


Sadako Sasaki was a 12 year old Japanese girl who died from radiation sickness, an after effect of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the time of the explosion in 1945, Sadako was 2 years old, and living about a mile from ground zero. By November 1954, chicken pox had been spotted on her neck and behind her ears, then on January 1955, purple spots had began to form on her legs. Soon enough, she was diagnosed with leukemia, something her mother called an atom bomb disease. In the year 1955 she was hospitalized, but her chance of recovery was almost zero, in fact, she was given at the most, a year to live. On August 3, 1955, Sadako's best friend, Chizuko Hamamoto came to visit and folded a gold piece of paper into crane. At first Sadako didn't understand why Chizuko was folding a crane, but then Chizuko told her the story about the paper cranes. Wanting to quickly recover, Sadako decided to continue folding cranes, though lacking paper, she would instead use medicine wrappings and anything else she could find that could be used as a substitute for paper. But, she never got better. With her family around her, Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955.

After her death, Sadako's friends and schoolmates published a set of letters in order to raise funds to help build a memorial to her and all of the children who had died from the after effects of the atomic bomb. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was built in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. At the foot of the statue is a plaque that reads:

"This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world."

Hopefully, the story will help remind our generation and future generations the horrors of the atomic bomb, and how it killed innocent children and people. The atomic bomb is another destructive weapon that shouldn’t ever be used or produced again.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Events (mostly about Japan)



1937: Japan goes to war with China
July 1939: Roosevelt announces that Treaty of Commerce and Navigation will not be renewed
July 2, 1940: U.S. Congress passes Export Control Act
August: Japan declares greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere
September 27: Japan signs Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy
January 1941: Yamamoto prepares plan for attack on Pearl Harbor
July: Japanese troops occupy Indochina
October: Hirohito gives general approval for Pearl Harbor attack
November 8: Hirohito approves formal battle plan for attack in December
November 26: Japanese attack fleet sets sail from Japan
December 7: Japan launches surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
December 8: United States and Britain declare war on Japan
December 11: Germany declares war on United States

Friday, February 19, 2010

"Never Again"

Yad Vashem is a museum-university-memorial to what Israeli's refer to as the Shoah or "burning." I have been there 3-4 times as a teacher and as an explorer desiring to unlock the fundamental problems that the Holocaust presents to rational and ethical human beings.

There are certain parts of Yad Vashem that will always remain with me. There is a room that is totally dark except for one, small pocket of light that is refracted and reflected off mirrors to present millions of smaller pieces of light into the dark room...Each tiny piece of light is meant to represent each child that died in the Holocaust.

Another section is a garden that memorializes the "Righteous Among the Nations" or gentiles (non-jews) that risked death to help save Jewish lives. Yad Vashem as a university explores these cases using historical methods to bestow the title of Righteous Among the Nations to individuals who acted courageously in the face of genocide.

I urge you to explore this web site and to keep in mind a cultures necessity in collecting their histories for future generations.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

7 FUN FACTS.

DID YOU KNOW?

- From 1939 until WWII end, the Allies dropped 3.4 million up tons of bomb, mostly in the industrial of the German's cities.
- For four man wounded, one were killed.
- 40,000 men work in the U-Boats but 30,000 died. :(
- Chances of your death of being a japanese pilot is 74%.
- When the Allies reached the Rhine, one of Germans most important source of clean water. They pee’d on it, including Churchill himself. - -"
- 40 to 45 % of German planes were destroyed by accidents.
- When the Canadians and Americans troops reached the island of Kiska, 21 person died in a fire fight….between the American and Canadian.

Burma-Thailand Death Railway in World War 2

The railway was built from Kanchanaburi, Thailand to Burma to be a path to send supplies for the Japanese. More than 280,000 prisoners were forced to build the railway 10 days in a row and had only one day off. Obviously, around ten thousand people didn't survive. It was one of the most cruel, terrifying labour camps in the world history.
Cruelty and callousness were able to be observed in this labor camp. People who were sick and felt too tired to work were all beaten up or being torture to death. Workers were also starving and there was none of medical care. In the records, there were about 90,000 deaths but in reality, the death rate could go up to 150,000 as no records of them were kept.

Not only the prisoners were being tortured. The officers who were too kind to obey the order (to beat people who didn't work so hard) would be captured and bodily tortured in the prison for a month. Many of Japanese soldiers were left out and were told that their lives meant nothing, if they died, there'd be plenty to be replaced.
However, the construction took around 8 months. With the terrifying occurrence during the building of the railway made people call this the Death Railway. Therefore, some part of the railroad still left for us to see in Kanchanaburi and some in Burma. It was one of the terrible things happened in our history due to the inhumanity of 'humans'


by: Pupp

Invasion of Poland

The decision of Adolf Hitler to invade Poland was a gamble. The Wehrmacht (the German Army) was not yet at full strength and the German economy was still locked into peacetime production. As such, the invasion alarmed Hitler's generals and raised opposition to his command - and leaks of his war plans to Britain and France.

Hitler's generals urged caution and asked for more time to complete the defences of the 'West Wall', in order to stem any British and French counter-offensive in the west while the bulk of the Wehrmacht was engaged in the east. Their leader dismissed their concerns, however, and demanded instead their total loyalty.

Hitler was confident that the invasion of Poland would result in a short, victorious war for two important reasons. First, he was convinced that the deployment of the world's first armoured corps would swiftly defeat the Polish armed forces in a blitzkrieg offensive. Secondly, he judged the British and French prime-ministers, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, to be weak, indecisive leaders who would opt for a peace settlement rather than war.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Facts about Japanese -Japanese's aggressiveness

Has anyone wondered why Japanese never let the enemy caught them after losing a battle as a prisoners? Every time they were about to lose, they wouldn’t let others to capture them but they’d commit suicide. Also, the Banzai charge and Kamikaze attacks were the attacks that used the pilot to fly to the specific target and simply do the bombing suicide. So, why did the Japanese use a lot of suicide tactics in the World War II instead of surrendering or just ‘Hit and Run’?

According to what I’ve read, one interesting fact about Japan in the World War II was how people never gave up or surrendered. If they were about to capture, they’d self-scarified to prevent from capturing as prisoners. The only group of people who got captured was because they were too badly injured and couldn’t disembowel themselves. Japanese believed they’d die rather than being caught and needed to go serve another country. It was warrior’s tradition to have the belief that they had to die with honor to their country.

For the Kamikaze attacks, with great eager from their leaders, Japanese had their intention to make high accuracy attack to the target. Therefore, it happened to be suicide drives to American ships. Also, it saved Japan’s fuel because it’d be a one-way trip to the target. The pilots had no fear to die, they believed they'd get a place in heaven after done an honor to their beloved country.


Figure one~


Hara-kiri
(Disembowelment)


by: Pupp

Nazi Medical Experiments


Adolf Hitler surrounded himself with a small clique of fanatical, ruthless henchmen - a violent group of outsiders who rose to power in the Third Reich and established political and economic institutions of legitimized terror.

Hitler's henchmen were found to be quite psychologically normal. They were men of fine standing, husbands who morning and night kissed their wives, fathers who tucked their children into bed.

But they were men often seen as the very personifications of evil. Inhuman acts were an everyday occurrence - killings, mass gassing of men, women and children, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, medical experiments ..

The Nazi doctors would torture Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others.
Patients were put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death, and exposed to various other traumas.

At Auschwitz Josef Mengele (picture above),
The Angel Of Death, did a number of twin studies, and these twins were usually murdered after the experiment was over and their bodies dissected.

*watch a slide show of pictures during the experiments here--http://www.genocide.capote.dk/

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.


Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler

Mein Kampf was a book written by Adolf Hitler in the 1923, after he was sentenced to go to jail for five years for the cause of taking part in the Beer Hall Putsch. The title of this book 'Mein Kampf' in english meant 'My struggle'. Mein Kampf was a title short for Viereinhalb Jahre (des Kampfes) gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit, or Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. The book was a mixture of autobiography, political ideas and an explanation of the techniques of propaganda. In this book Hitler also described the Germans as the Aryan race, which basically means that they're the master of races. Hitler believes that Germans as the Aryan race, should have the rights to take over all the lands. However, Hitler also believed that the Aryan race was being threatened by the Jews, who he described as dirty, liars, lazy, and etc,. In Mein Kampf Hitler declared that: "The external security of a people in largely determined by the size of its territory." If he won power Hitler promised to take over Russian's land that would give both protection and living space for the German people.

-Tutu.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Brief Information about the Pacific War.....


Do you know that the Pacific war is one of the cause that lead to WW2? Yes it does and here is a brief summary of the Pacific War. The Pacific War was at first a conflict between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China, but it grew bigger and bigger and finally becomes part of the second World war. It started when USA, the allied of China, stop giving oil resources to Japan, and since Japan was the greatest country of the east, they think they should get what ever they wanted and so they bomb the Pearl Harbor [Hawaii] of the United states of America. That was a big mistake of Japan because USA had better weapons and the event eventually made the USA mad. So the USA react by using the atomic bomb to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki a province of Japan.



THE FALL OF FRANCE






After the Germans successfully drove the British out of France, they launched a new attack on the French, driving them back to all fronts. Later on, Hitler’s ally, Mussolini of Italy, declared war on France and an Italian army invaded southern France. As the Germans advanced, the French government fled from Paris in confusion and the Prime Minister resigned and was replaced by a retired army general, Marshal Pétain. Marshal Pétain signed an armistice or cease-fire(an agreement to temporary stop the war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions), with the Germans. According to this armistice, the Germans occupied all northern and eastern France. The south was to be governed by Marshal Pétain (based in the town of Vichy). In less than a year, the Germans had conquered six European nations. Only Britain was still at war with Germany. Hitler believed that Britain doesn’t want to fight anymore so he offered to make peace on moderate terms but however, Churchill rejected them and chose to fight on. Hitler therefore ordered an invasion of Britain by the combined air, sea and land forces of Germany. The British prepared to resist invasion. Over a million men joined a volunteer defense force (Home Guard) and are willing to die fighting instead of giving up.

The 'Phoney War'



A week before the Germans invaded and attacked Poland, Britain and France promised to defend Poland against the attack. On September 3, two days after the German invasion, they didn’t declared war on Germany. It was difficult for Britain and France to defend Poland because Britain’s army and air force were both small but France has a big army but they are not yet ready to fight. Another reason is that Poland was 1000 Km away from them. Instead of defending Poland, they just let the Germans and the Soviet armies over-ran Poland while both countries prepared to fight Germany in Western Europe. The French army was placed along the frontier with Germany and Belgium and British Expeditionary Force was sent to France. Civilians in both countries prepared themselves against German bombing such as women and children evacuated from cities to countryside, air-raid shelters were built, sandbags were put around doorways, people have to carry gas ma sk everywhere, and there was a blackout policy. For the next nine months, nothing happened,life went on as normal (no fighting took place between France, Britain, and Germany). French people described the situation as the ‘Odd war’ and the British called it the ‘Phoney war’.

Konrad Zuse – Computer Inventor during WWII

Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) was a construction engineer for the Henschel Aircraft Company in Berlin at the beginning of World War II. He had the title of “inventor of the modern computer” because he invented automatic calculators to help him with his calculations. There were some difficulties with doing large calculations which is keeping track of results to use it in the later steps of the calculation, so Zuse wanted to make something that would help him overcome the difficulty. He thought of an automatic calculator device that has a control, a memory and a calculator for the arithmetic would solve his problem.


In 1936, Zuse invented Z1, the first binary computer. It was like a testing to see how well this thing works. This was based on the yes/no principal. However, in 1939, Zuse made the Z2, the first fully functioning computer. Then in 1941, he completed Z3 which is made by recycled materials donated by his university staff and students. Z3 is the world’s first electronic, digital computer. To store his programs and data for Z3, he had to use old movie films instead of paper or punched cards because paper was hard to find in Germany during the war.

Even though Zuse made the first world’s computer, he was unable to convince the Nazi government to support his computer work because the Germans thought they were winning the war already and they needed no further research anymore.


http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050298.htm

The Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS)

During World War II, it is known that the women had to work when the men went to war. Women had to work in factories, land and do their housework as well. However, there is this voluntary group called “The Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS)” which did whatever that was needed. Most of them were older people because the younger ones were in factories and working on farms, so the younger ones were too exhausted to do extra work after their job is done. By 1943, there were one million members already. What this group did was they provided people with tea and refreshments when the people were doing their jobs, such as clearing places after bombings happened. They collected scrap metals that could fill four railway carriages in one month, looked after people who were homeless from German bombings and supported everyone. When they were not doing voluntarily work, they knitted socks, clothing and did other things for men. Some also adopted people and provided them with whatever they needed, such as warm knitted clothing.

From http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/women_WW2.htm

Hitler's Teenage Years

Thinking of Hitler, we would usually skip his teenage years and would immediatly think of his as the Nazi leader. Hitler being a teenage like every boy once also liked a girl however he never did have a girlfriend. Hitler's feeling for that girl was described to be an obsessive interest. The blonde girl's name is Stephanie. His actions described towards her was that he would stare at her as she walked by and would also stalk her. Hitler even wrote love poems about Stephanie, however he never gave them to her. He did not even have the nerve to introduce himself to her and tell her that he liked her. However Hitler always boasted to his best friend August Kubizek that he could communicate with Stephanie through intuition and that Stephanie was aware of his thoughts and also admired him. Hitler even showed great jealousy whenever Stephanie showed interest to other boys.
You could read more about Hitler and how he failed his art exam in this link:http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/art.htm

Gas Masks during the war


By September 1939 some 38 million gas masks had been given out to British families in hopes of protecting civilians from gas attacks, but by the war's end they proved to not have been needed.

Everyone in Britain was given a gas mask in a cardboard box, to protect them from gas bombs, which could be dropped during air raids.

Why were people afraid that chemical weapons might be used during WWII?
Gas had been widely used in WWI and many soldiers had either died or had been injured in gas attacks. Mustard gas was the most deadly of all the poisonous chemicals used
during WWI, it was almost odourless (almost no smell) and took 12 hours to take effect.

Posters
Posters reminded people to carry their gas masks with themselves at all times. People were also fined if they were caught without their gas masks with them.

♣The poster on the left encourages the people to always carry their masks with them since Hitler isn't going to be sending them warnings that he is going send his airforce to bomb them on what days at what times.

♣Special masks were given out for younger children since the government feared that these children would be afraid of the masks and refrain from wearing them. *These special masks were colored out to look like the cartoonish mickey mouse character.*

Joseph Mengele

Joseph Mengele was one of the well known doctors in WW2, due to his aggresive and brutal actions in concentration camps. Jospeh was said to be the reason of the death of four hundred thousand people. He's one of those psycho doctors that had fun killing and experimenting with human nature. Due to his brutal actions he was nicknamed the Angel of Death. Joseph even had a special interest in twins, leading him to experiment on them. Due to Joseph's special interest in twins, he gave special privileges to them. Some of the recorded experiments are ones that Joseph injects chemicals into children's eyes to change their eye colors. He even cuts the twins in half and sow them together to create Siamses twins. Although he is known for his brutual actions, however strangely twins that are able to survive WW2 remember him as being the gentle uncle or father that came and befriended them by giving them chocolates and clothes.

There are many things more to know about Joseph Mengele, about his brutal actions and how scary he is. You could read more about him in http://auschwitz.dk/Mengele.htm

Food Rationing

Why was food rationed in Britain in World War II?
Before WWII started Britain imported about 55 million tons of food a year from other countries, however, a month after the war had started this figure had dropped to 12 million tons. After war was declared on September 1939, the British government had to cut down on the amount of food that was imported, as German submarines were attacking British supply ships. Due to this, the British government begin to worry that it would lead to food shortages, so they decided to introduce a system of rationing.
Rationing made sure that people got an equal amount of food every week. The government was worried that as food became rarer, prices would soar and poor people would not be able to afford the food. There was also the danger of some people hoarding food, leaving none for others.

How long was food rationed for?
Rationing of food lasted for 14 years and ended on July 4, 1954.
How did food rationing work?
When people went to buy food, the items they bought were crossed off in their ration book by the shopkeeper.

How much food was one person allowed to buy per week during the war?
The weekly ration varied from month to month as foods became more or less available .
A typical ration for one adult per week was:
-Butter: 50g
-Bacon and ham: 100g
-Margarine: 100g
-Sugar: 225g
-Milk: 3 pints (1800ml) -Cheese: 2oz (50g)
-Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week
-Tea: 50g
-Jam: 450g (1lb) every 2 months
-Dried eggs: 1 packet every 4 weeks
-Sweets: 350g every 4 weeks

Hitler's Wife


Do you guys know who she is? ....
Whenever mentioning about WW2, the first person that pops out in your head would be Hitler, and then President Churchill and all those Generals and many other more, which all are men. Whenever we learn about WW2, women wouldn't be in the topic that we discuss about, since women aren't the ones who fight in the war and are already having a hard time surving each day during war time. Well to think about it, whenever we discuss about WW2 and about Hitler, the question that pops up in my head is where have all the women disapeared to? Especially Hitler's wife. Once in my lifetime, I even thought that Hitler didn't have a wife and was always spending his time with his Generals ( which actually is true most of the time), well after doing some research I found out that Hitler did have a wife and she is the woman in the picture above. Her name is Eva Anna Paula Braun. Seeing her, the only thing that I could think about is how suffering it would be to be Hitler's wife. Well it basically must be for Eva, since she was Hitler's mistress for 12 years and was his officially known wife for only 1 day. She even had 3 suicide attempt in which the first 2 she failed. The first attempt was when she was found with a bullet in her neck. The second time, due to the desperation that she was being neglected by Hitler, she took 25 sleeping pills to make sure she wouldn't have to live again, however she still was saved. God may have really liked her or hated her for making her still live. However, Hitler may have loved Eva, since due to her suicide attempts he bought her a six room villa in Weidermeyerstrasse, in Munich. He even gave her a car with a chauffer. Being Hitler's wife it was even said that she knew about the Jew persecution, however did not know what was happening in the camps. Reading this it really makes me wonder that Eva must have lived a really peaceful life where she stays with nature and doesn't take any news or Hitler was really good at keeping news away from his wife.Finally, the last attempt that Eva commited suicide was with Hitler, in which she finally succeeded.

Psychological Effects on POW's of WWII


WWII was not only the cause of major conflicts and death, but it also caused a tremendous amount of psychological effects on soldiers. There were many cases of different disorders, most of which were from POW's (Prisoners of War) who were captured by the Germans. The tables (above) were various medical reports on POW's who were recently released from concentration camps towards the war's end. The doctors who diagnosed these POW's were from the Minneapolis medical center--one of the many medical centers soldiers had checked into.

The most notable statistic of Table 1 (Top-Left) are the cases of diabetes--this was most likely caused by the bad food given to POW's at the concentration camp.
Apart from the depressive disorders from POW's in Table 2 (Top-Right), the prevalence of alcohol dependency was 21%-24%. Perhaps soldiers had to resort to drinking as a method to relieve themselves of the horrors of the camp?
Table 3 (Bottom-Left) shows the weight loss of individuals with a certain health disorder. Those with hypertension lost the most weight, which may have been a notable observation at the time, as hypertension might have not been widely known of.
Finally, the last table (Bottom-Right) study what the POW's claim to have experienced, which may help doctors diagnose their problems. As you can see, just about everyone in the camps were injured during captivity, and about half were subject to labor. Most of them recalled mental suffering and experienced delirium.
These tables are be great examples of the psychological effects that were inflicted upon POW's, and they are the closest we may ever know of how horrifying concentration camps may have been.

Information from the PDF file: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED290998&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED290998

Images cropped and compiled from the PDF file.

The Battle of the Atlantic

The Battle of the Atlantic

As a nation with an overseas empire, the United Kingdom was highly dependent on imported goods. Britain required more than a million tons of imported materials per week in order to be able to survive and fight. Basically, the Battle of the Atlantic was a tonnage ( military strategy aimed at merchant shipping) the Allied powers struggled to keep Britains supply lines open, and the Axis powers struggled to cut off the merchant shipping forcing Britain to surrender due to starvation and the lack of raw materials.

A major threat towards the British ships was German U-boats ( Unterseeboten) which could hunt ships beneath the ocean and destroy allied ships with torpedoes. The only point where the U-boats lacked was speed, U-boats would be extremely slow when it was underwater. If it were to attack a convoy and wasn't able to succeed in that, the only job left was to wait for the next lot of convoys to pass, since it can't follow or chase those convoys due to the slow speed. Although U-boats lacked in speed however they are proven to be destructive and was able to sink many British ships. As protection against U-boat attacks, ships traveled in convoys, guarded by Royal navy destroyers and corvettes. However, the Germans took to hunting in wolf packs where 15-20 U-boats waited in a line across possible convoy routes, ready to attack. By early 1941 so many British ships were sunk by the German wolf packs that Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, declared that a Battle of the Atlantic was taking place. The battle of the Atlantic widened after the US joined WW2 in December 1941, through a program called lend-lease. This lend-lease program was a program that the US allowed Britain to buy their weapons without immediate payments. Before the entrance of the United Kingdom in WW2, U-boats only had eyes for attacking British ships, however after the US entered the war and supported Britain by shipping weapons to them in the lend-lease program, u-boats then started sinking American ships. The U-boats sank more than 200 American ships before the US Navy began its own convoy system. As the battle of the Atlantic moved onto 1943, the Allied Powers benefited from new technology that helped them to prevent U-boat secretive attacks. An invention would be the Huff Duff ( High Frequency Direction finding) which could detect short radion signals from a surfaced U-boat, allowing the American and British ships to be directed away from the area. Another discovery that benefited the Allies was the discovery of an Enigma coding machine that was obtained on board of a captured U-boat. This discovery allowed the British to decipher the secret Ultra codes which the Germans used for sending orders to the U-boats. However, despite these new discoveries and inventions, the Allies were losing the battle of the Atlantic by early 1943, the Germans encouraged by their success in the Black Gap, sent 60 U-boats for an attack on a convoy in May 1943. This time however, the allies were better prepared and managed to sink7 U-boats for the loss of 12 ships. German U-boats continued to hunt Allied ships for the rest of 1943, but May 1943 was a major turning point for the allies since the Germans failed to cut Britain's supply lines across the Atlantic.

Credits to: Sangtawun, Amy ,Jenny and Tina

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Japan in Retreat

By 1941-1942, Japan has already conquered a huge space of the Southeast Asia due to their rapidly speed of victory. After the attacking of Pearl Harbor, Japan expanded its territories far over to the border of India and the New Guinea within a duration of six months. Their uninterrupted string of victory ended in a devastating defeat in the Battle of Midway. After the Battle, the Allies slowly regained the territories of Japan and slowly forced Japan into an unconditional surrender. Another factor that led to Japan's retreat was the gigantic economic gap between Japan and America which left Japan without enough material and to sustain its civilian population and military. Japan was incompetent to produce as much weapons as America. They lacked foods and raw materials. The American submarines also raid Japan's shipping. Japan didn't use the convoy system, therefore, American submarines were able to sank many of Japan's merchant ships. The more the Japan soldiers were forced to retreat, the more the fight fiercely. Some thought that surrendering was dishonorable, so a few were only captured as a prisoner. Men, women, and children leap off cliffs to avoid being captured. The war turned bloodier through the following years of continued fighting.

Deaths Caused by Holocaust

In the 1920s and 1930s, Anti-Semitism was common in Europe. Jews were not the only target for the Nazis. They targeted Polish intelligentsia, communists, and Roma groups as well. Nazis called them "undesirables." Concentration camps were spread throughout Europe. New camps being created near centers of crowded "undesirable" populations and most camps were located on the area of General Government.

The exact amount of people killed by the Nazis is still put through to additional investigation.The Soviet and British documents have pointed out the total may be higher than previously believed. However, the following approximations are considered to be highly reliable.
  • 5.6 - 6.1 million Jews
  • 3.5 - 6 million Slavic civilians
  • 2.5 - 4 million POWs
  • 1 - 1.5 million political dissidents
  • 200,000 - 800,000 Roma & Sinti
  • 200,000 - 300,000 handicapped
  • 10,000 - 250,000 homosexuals
  • 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses

Friday, February 12, 2010

Interesting Facts About WWII

  1. From 1939 - 1945, the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs. An average of 27,700 tons of bombs per month.
  2. US's youngest serviceman was 12 years old! His name is Calvin Graham. He was wounded in a battle and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age.
  3. Germany lost 110 Division Commanders in battle.
  4. 40,000 Germans served on U-Boats during World War 2 and 30,000 never returned.
  5. When Allied armies reached Rhine River in Germany, the first thing men did was pee in it. This was quite worldwide due to a big show that Winston Churchill made. Gen. Patton, one of the men who had peed in it, had photographed himself in the act.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Persecution and Genocide Under the Nazis

During the years between 1933 and 1945 Nazi Germany under Hitler's rule persecuted and killed an enormous amount of people. Hitler's goal came to be known as the 'Final Solution', which was to execute all the Jews and the 'Undesirables', people who did not seem fit to build a Greater Germany. By late 1941 the first Jews from Germany were transported along with other minorities to concentration camps stationed along Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania,Ukraine, and western Russia. In these concentration camps, prisoners were tortured, used as slaves, gassed, and murdered. By the time the war ends thousands and millions of people will have been killed in concentration camps alone.

Hitler decided on persecuting the Jewish race because he was under the delusion that the Jews were enemies to Germany, and the reason why they had lost World War I. The holocaust was an important event in history because it has proven to mankind how much cruelty one man is capable of. Before this nobody believed that one group of people would try to eliminate an entire race of people. There are a billion things that make a historical significance of the Holocaust, but the most important one is that it is meant to be remembered and avoided, and not forgotten and not meant to happen again.

Here's a timeline that I found on the internet, it includes events from 1935 to 1945, all these events relate to the persecution and genocide during World War II.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

New technology

New advance technology changed warfare in world war 2. Made it more deadly and violent. The link below shows the advance weapon that had been used during world war 2. More people were killed because of technology, as more people died in WW2 than WW1.The technological advances in WW2 changed the battlefield completely as more deadly equipments was introduced. The atom bomb was a big part of WW2 as people could be killed from a long distance. This bomb also covered a long area killing more and more people. And some effects afterward was a form of cancer that killed people.New air warfare such as fighter jets were introduced in WW2. These planes carried deadly bombs and could take out a large number of people. New sea warfare was introduced, such ships as the corvette were popular, and the corvette was mostly used for shipping ammunition to Europe from North America. Also, submarines proved deadly as they were out of radar and carried deadly bombs such as the torpedo.


http://www.2worldwar2.com/infantry-weapons.htm

Winston Churchill

"Those who do not think of the future are unworthy of their ancestors." Winston Churchill spoke these words in London on Oct. 24th, 1936, during a tribute to the Royal Marines. This statement told those people who were ready to fight and die for their country, it foreshadowed the challenges Churchill would face and Britain during World War 2. The years before he led Britain into victory in this war was marked by his political isolation and overall Britain appeasement policy towards Germany. One of the most important time in Churchill career was when he held no position, and most of his people found his ideas idiotic. When he was unpopular he didn’t belong to any party. These rivals manage to keep Churchill out of power until the outbreak of world war 2 in 1939.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

WWII Turning Point : Stalingrad

During the invasion code named "Operation Barbarossa" it was a critical point for the German Nazis and Soviet Union because in the beginning of the invasion the Soviet Union lost half a million men to the Nazis as prisoners, along with most of the Soviet air force, and large quantities of supplies due to a sudden Blitzkrieg attack done by the German Nazis, but as the invasion continued the German Nazis had to face the "Scorched Earth" tactics of the Soviet Union and the unbearable weathers of Russia and many died from coldness, diseases, and hunger. The turning point was when Hitler sent half of his troops to capture Stalingrad, the Germans weren't able to surround the city due to its size and in the following months the Germans and Soviets fought a endless battle over Stalingrad, and after 3 months the Germans failed to capture it and ended trapping themselves in the city, and on the 31st of January 1943 the German General von Paulus surrendered along with 24 other Generals and 91,000 soldiers leaving 150,000 of their comrades dead in the ruined ashes of Stalingrad...

-Would the results of war be different if Hitler would have approached Stalingrad differently?

-What if Hitler listened to General von Paulus and retreated his troops from Stalingrad, would he have benefited from the war?

( From the reading "Global War" : pg. 12, 20, and 22 )


Atomic Bombs

After the Pearl Harbor incident, Hiroshima was the main target of the first U.S. nuclear mission attack. The American military had operated the atomic bomb named “Little Boy”. B-29 Enola Gay was the aircraft that carried Little Boy to the city of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945 at 8:16:02 A.M. (Hiroshima time), the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. It exploded 1,900 feet with a force of 12,500 tons of TNT. The explosion destroyed the city and killed thousands of lives.

The second target of the nuclear attack mission was on Nagasaki, Japan. The atomic bomb was called “Fat Boy”. On August 9, 1945 at 11:02 a.m., the second atomic bomb was dropped by an aircraft called B-29 Superfortress "Bockscar”. Fat Boy exploded at 1,650 feet with a force of 22,000 tons of TNT. In a blink of an eye, Nagasaki was destroyed.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Now this is critical thinking...all kinds of problem solving.

Here is a link to an interesting list of the top  Five Weird Weapons of WWII. What is most interesting is that a few of them actually have merit when utilized and were met with degrees of success. Even the ice ship seems to have had potential. What does this tell you about military resource investment in research and development? Why would human beings involved in the military go to such great lengths in developing solutions to problems? Do patterns exist in this war in regard to the application of science and technology?

Employ those critical thinking skills as much as possible; you never know when it will save the day! (Like the ant-tank-dog concept)

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The productive power of Civilians during WWII.

Hsu, Amy, Pupp, Prae

During the war many people who werent soldiers found ways to help out. For example, women had to give up the jobs to work in factories and produce weapons, planes, and ships etc. They also provided the soldiers with clothing and socks. They struggled with working in factories and also having to go home and do their own house work. While the little boys gathered scrapped metal or candy wrappers to recycle for the weapons. Other than working in factories they had rationing which meant that they couldnt buy things they wanted to buy.

Cars had to be made out of zinc instead of copper. In 1870, few factories had over 500 workers, but by the 1900s, more than 1,000 factories had between 500 to 1,000 workers. American workers produced more goods, more cheaply, but in less time.

In June, 1942, British, Soviet Union, and the US, had 11600 aircrafts while Germany had 3700 aircrafts and By december 1944 British, US, and Soviets aircrafts increased to 42,500 aircrafts and German's to 8500 aircrafts.

Figure 1

This picture represents how the women are part of the contribution to the war, by observing the picture, the woman is trying to show her aggressiveness to give people courage to fight for their country because before, women were not working, but since the men had to go to war, women had to start working, so she's showing that everyone should give support and do their best.

War in the Soviet Union :)

War in the Soviet Union - Aparna, Manika, Christina, and Junior

THESIS: In 1942, the Soviet Union began the war by trying to recapture cities they had lost, which failed and encouraged the Germans to capture Stalingrad, a major city and commercial center that spread out along River Volga, resulting in a bitter battle between Hitler and Stalin.


THREE EXAMPLES:
1) Although the Germans and the Soviet Union planned major attacks on each other, it was the Soviet Union that made the first move by trying to recapture their lost cities.
2) Hitler made a fatal decision by commanding his army to capture Stalingrad, which was a city that could be a possible threat to the German's advance. Due to this city's length along the River Volga, the only way to capture it was through direct attack because it couldn't be surrounded or sieged.
3) The next three months was a desperate battle between Hitler and Stalin for Stalingrad. During its course, many lives were lost in both sides.

How were the Soviets able to repel the German army?

Group: Tanvi, Newton, Siddhant, Rafael


The two main reasons that the Soviets were successful in resisting the German invasion were bad weather conditions, which slowed down the Germans greatly, and the use of the Scorched Earth Policy, where they destroyed everything that the Germans could've captured and benefited from. This included farms and any vehicles that were left behind.
Some other ways in which the Soviets were able to repel the German army were the relocation of the weapons factories and workers eastward, away from German reach. They reassembled these factories and continued to supply themselves at a constant rate. Another significant way was the help the Soviets received from USA and Britain, who also gave them supplies to help battle Germany.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Munich Agreement

Before World War Two started there were major and minor series of events that lead to world into this deadest war. The Munich Agreement on september 29 1398 was the major that I would said to be the event that stretch the time period before the war started. Before the agreement happens, Germany wanted the control the land of Sudetenland owned by Czechoslovak. At first the British and the French said that this was unacceptable. However the these two countries didn't wanted to go to war, so Hitler (with the idea of Mussolini) organized a agreement in Munich. At the agreement the the USSR wasn't invited (this was a real slap in the face for Stalin who believes that the British didn't trust the USSR and Stalin) and Britain and France decides to gave Germany the Sudetenland with Hitler promising that he would not invade other countries any more. However within couples of mounts Hilter lied and invaded Poland and takes over Czechoslovakia which force the British and French to declare war on Germany starting World War Two. For this many people consider that the Munich was a failure, but after I had a discussion with Mr. Tim I strongly thinks that the Agreement stretch the beginning of the war and therefore we both consider that this agreement was not a complete failure.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

OH NEIN

and this is when it all started...

A Brief Timeline of World War II

http://ww2timeline.info/mini.htm

This website shows a brief timeline of World War II. Most of what we need to know is covered in it, but the organization of events makes it much easier to read and to comprehend the events that occurred during World War II. :)

Shocking News?!?!

A Shock to the System

On 23 August, 1939, the world was shocked when, suddenly, Russia and Germany signed a 'Non-aggression Pact'.

People would have been even more shocked if they had known at the time that, in addition, the two countries had made a number of a 'secret protocol' agreeing to 'spheres of influence' in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland. It amounted to an agreement to invade and divide the countries of eastern Europe between them ... with Poland first on the list.

Eastern Europe in 1939. Germany and Russia invade Poland.


This British cartoon of 1939 shows Hitler and Stalin.



Importance of Aircraft Carriers in WW2

Aircraft Carriers played a important role second world war, these aircraft carriers are deadly because of their ability to carry aircraft on them, this way they can ship planes to a certain area and lunch them there for an attack and this way it is more efficient and the plane save oil, this is also what makes it deadly because a fleet of armed aircraft carriers are able to cause severe causalities in the air, land and sea and the Japanese used this as an advantage to launch the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and that is why the Aircraft Carriers are important in the second world war.

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/st/~magneson/ww2.html

Hitler

In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming bolder. In March 1938 Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers. Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population; France and Britain conceded this territory to him, against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. However, soon after that, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary and Poland. In March 1939

Blitzkrieg War

The "Blitzkrieg" or Lighting war was invited by a german general named Hans Guderian. This war tactic was first uses in world war two, when Hitler was able to occupied Poland in just a couple of weeks. The tactic was planed in three easy and effective steps. First having the Air force booming in areas around the location they wanted to occupied, then they would used the tanks (lighting tanks which were able to run up to 60-80 km/h) which would destroy everything the air forces misses and were able to get into deeper location, lastly the foot soldiers would move into the location and destroy the left over things that the Air forces and the tanks has missed. The Nazis uses Blitzkrieg tactic to take over many countries in Europe in a short amount of time. The following is how the generals and soldiers would describe this tactic:


"Speed, and still more speed, and always speed was the secret……..and that demanded audacity, more audacity and always audacity."

Major General Fuller

"When the dive-bombers come down, they (the French) stood it for two hours and then ran with their hands over their ears."

"Sedan fell as a result of a bombardment……….it was a superb example of military surprise."

"The pace is too fast……it’s the co-operation between the dive-bombers and the tanks that is winning the war for Germany."

"News that the Germans are in Amiens………this is like some ridiculous nightmare."