Winning the War Video Questions Alt Assignment
Use the information below to answer your video questions and return this sheet to me.
WW II: Complete History (1-5)
In 1942, US Lt. Col. James Doolittle led a daring bombing raid over Tokyo Japan. Due to the distance, Doolittle’s planes had to take off from an aircraft carrier. This was a challenge for Doolittle as normally a bomber had a lot of distance to take off from the ground but had very little space in taking off from the deck of a ship. Doolittle’s crew did hit a few targets in Tokyo but did little damage and Doolittle himself was shot down. Luckily, the Chinese rescued him and although his raid did not damage much it was a much need morale booster for the US since this was the first time America had struck back against the Japanese. The aircraft carrier was a new technology during the war, Admiral Chester Nimitz, who during World War I had worked on the experimental submarine unit, oversaw its development. Nimitz was elevated to Commander of the Pacific Fleet and gave the men at Pearl Harbor a real morale booster by telling them the attack was not their fault and that the Japanese had not done that much significant damage. Nimitz continued to push the idea of the aircraft carrier saying it was more effective than the battleship and would become the future of modern naval warfare.
America the Story of Us (6-12)
June of 1944, Allied troops are planning a massive invasion of German-held France. In preparing for battle, soldiers routinely shaved their head to avoid having their hair pulled in hand-to-hand combat. To prevent German planes from hitting Allied troops, some Americans had to carry large barrage balloons in an attempt to block the aircraft. As soldiers are getting off of the ships they have no tanks to help (they sunk) and no air cover, which make the troops open to enemy machine gun attacks. However, within a month the Allies are pushing the Germans out of France. Over 200K men were killed and millions of dollars were spent on Operation Overlord but it the end it was the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Germany.
As the war in Europe ended, the war in the Pacific raged on. During the 1930s, FDR had ordered a top-secret plan called the Manhattan Project to develop Atomic Bombs. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the physicist in charge of developing these bombs. The bombs, which split an atom to create force, have as much power as 20K tons of high explosives. After a successful test of the bomb, President Harry Truman authorized two atomic bombs to be dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over 300K civilians were killed and the two cities were in utter ruins. However, using this new powerful weapon made the US the “superpower” of the world as they ended the war and were the only nation to possess this new weapon.