Chapter 9.2 Theaters of War
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe the Allied and Axis operations in Europe and Africa during World War II
- Explain why the Battles of Stalingrad and Midway are considered turning points in World War II
- Discuss U.S. operations in East Asia and the Pacific during World War II
- Describe the evolution of the Holocaust after the German invasion of Poland
World War II was perhaps history’s most globalizing event. Troops fought battles on three continents, in the air, and at sea. Britain and the United States planned early in the war to focus on defeating Italy and Germany before Japan but left the Soviet Union to battle Germany alone. In Asia, the “liberation” of the inhabitants of European and U.S. colonies by Japanese troops only replaced Western rule with Japanese rule, igniting or giving impetus to nationalist movements. Fought on so many fronts, World War II proved to be the deadliest conflict in history. Among those who perished were millions of noncombatants, including the victims of the Nazi death camps. The experiences of survivors shaped the rest of their lives and the course of the societies to which they returned.
Europe and Africa
Mussolini decided to expand his African holdings and in August 1940 occupied British Somaliland, threatening the British in Egypt. The British counterattacked. Losing ground in Africa from June through December 1940, Mussolini turned his eyes on the Balkans. In October 1940, expecting an easy victory, Italian units invaded Greece but were badly defeated. To forestall further disaster, Hitler dispatched General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps to duel with the British in northeast North Africa. Not only did Germany wish to support its Italian ally, but it also sought to gain control of the Suez Canal and guarantee its access to Middle Eastern oil, which would be crucial in winning the war. To further aid his faltering ally and deal with an anti-German uprising in Yugoslavia, Hitler postponed his invasion of the Soviet Union by several weeks and invaded Greece on April 6, 1941.
Fearing that any substantial British effort against the Germans in Norway or northern France would become a slaughter, Winston Churchill conceived Operation Gymnast, a plan to engage the Germans in northwest Africa instead. On a military mission to London in July 1942, General Eisenhower was deeply disappointed in Churchill’s approach, considering how badly the Soviets were suffering from German offensives. General George C. Marshall favored opening a front in northern Europe in order to draw German resources away from its attack on the Soviet Union before the Soviets collapsed. But Churchill prevailed, and the Allies, now including the United States, invaded French North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) in November 1942. Key British possessions Egypt and the Suez Canal were saved, and in a January 1943 summit meeting at Casablanca in French Morocco, Churchi