Marshal Georgy Zhukov

In this article I will write about Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the most successful Russian general in World War Two. Zhukov effectively led the attack on Berlin in April/May 1945 and throughout the whole Russian campaign was known as the ‘man who did not lose a battle’.

He was born December 1, 1896, in Strelkovka, Russia; Georgy Zhukov was the son of peasants. After working in the fields as a child, Zhukov was apprenticed to a furrier in Moscow at age 12. His career proved short lived as in July 1915, he was conscripted into the Russian army for service in World War I. Assigned to the cavalry, Zhukov performed with distinction, twice winning the Cross of St. George. Serving with the 106th Reserve Cavalry and the 10th Dragoon Novgorod Regiment, his time in the conflict ended after he was badly wounded.

After the Civil War had ended in Russia and relative calm had descended on the nation, Zhukov studied the use of armored warfare in battle. He had seen for himself, the cost in human lives of outmoded warfare and he developed his own ideas on how armored vehicles could be used in combat. His knowledge and skill clearly impressed Joseph Stalin who had used the Purges to rid himself of many senior Red Army officers. In 1940, Zhukov was appointed chief of staff by Stalin. Zhukov knew that failure would not be tolerated by Stalin - neither would be getting on the wrong side of the leader.

His participation in the red army in the battle of Berlin was that after the October revolution in 1917, Zhukov became a member of the Bolshevik Party and joined the Red Army. Fighting in the Russian Civil War (1918-1921), Zhukov continued in the cavalry, serving with the famed 1st Cavalry Army. At the war's conclusion, he was awarded Order of the Red Banner for his role in putting down the 1921 Tambov Rebellion. Steadily rising through the ranks, Zhukov was given command of a cavalry division in 1933, and later was assigned as deputy commander of the Byelorussian Military District. Finally Zhukov was given the credit for the victory of the Russian forces over the Nazis in the Battle for Berlin. Though a victory in military terms, the Russians had taken very many casualties in this battle. However, this victory sealed for Zhukov the title of the ‘man who never lost a battle’. In the aftermath of this victory, Zhukov, now a marshal in the army headed the Russian occupation force.

By: Camila Richter and Analucia Castagnino

The Battle of Berlin’s Aftermath

There were TOO many lost in these battle, not only because of the army and the guns lost, also because the people affected and all the dead occurred in the battle. That’s the reason why I want to make the article, because I think that what I know more about these, are the consequences. Also because this battle was the last major battle fought on WWII.

The tanks lost by the Soviets exceeded all estimates, due to the effective utilization of the Panzerfaust, which however, was not enough to stop the armored advanced on the capital. The German resistance was finish after the finished all the munitions and troops.

The Soviets informed that 155.000 people dead in Berlin and like 250.000 damage people or sick. In the other hand, kind of 45.000 German people die, including the civil.

One of the caracteristics of the Russian invasion of Germany were the mass rape of women as punishment for the war, despite them not being responsible. In Berlin, 500,000 women were raped of 2.000.000 of total German people sexually assaulted.

In a similar case to the final stages of the war and the Soviet advance, the members of the Nazi Party fled leaving the German civilians to their fate, that they only learned of the approach of the Soviets when the German soldiers retreating from the front giving them the advice of the enemy advance, being that it was too late to flee ( obviously, civilians could not run as fast as soldiers) .

Finally, the last wishes of Hitler ordered that the Admiral Karl Dönitz became President of the Reich, while Joseph Goebbels would be the new Chancellor of Germany. However the last suicide, along with his family, let Dönitz with the responsibility of the war. At last, on May 8, 1945, the German High Command surrendered unconditionally to the Soviet Union ending the war in Europe.

                                                                                                                            Camila Richter

Why does Japanese get involved to the Pearl Harbor?

In this article I will write about how the Japanese wants to attack United States, the principle cause about this revenge.

The attack to the Pearl Harbor was executed by the Imperial Japanese Army in the morning of December 7^th of the present year. The surprise attack to Pearl Harbor in the Oahu island in Hawaii, was for the Pacific float of the United States army and the air forces that defended the zone.

The objective of the attack, directed by Chuichi Nagumo, was to neutralize the enemy float for a large period, so they can occupy the occidental colonies in the southeast of Asia, to break the economy problem in which Japan was involved the past year.  When the USA is weakened, Japan would look for peace with good conditions.

Japanese wish to avoid a large battle, but even the Japanese empire won the action, they didn’t obtain a decisive victory.

The motivation for the attack in the Japanese hand against EEUU was that the United States after the second war China-Japan between the years 1937 aprox , realized about the military actions of Japan in the country of China, taking them the metal and petroleum. When Japan occupy Indochina, French colony in 1940, the western powers answer with a freeze of goods and close the canal of Panama for the Japanese ships.

In that time, the petroleum was especially important for Japan, actually they need personal petroleum resources.

That’s how the diplomatic business start for growing them up.  But the problem for the Japanese were that the written business, have like consequences go out from the country of china. That’s when the Japanese notice that they have only two options. One was to be okay with the demands of the United States and the Soviet Union and leave China, or continue trying to obtain the petroleum knowing that they can finally, finish in a war.

As we know, the Japanese finally chose the war, they want to fight and never give up

By: Camila Richter

British rearmament during the Operation Sea Lion

When Operation Sea Lion began, the British army appeared to be an easy target for the German military, but it wasn’t.

Aware of the German preparation to invade, the British start to plan a defense strategy with the limited resources they had, because even thought a large number of men were available, the British Army’s heavy equipment had been lost during the Dunkirk Evacuation. They obviously needed to invest some millions if they were going to defeat Germany.

The Commander in Chief, General Sir Edmund Ironside, was responsible of the island’s defense, but he was lacking sufficient mobile forces and had to construct a system of static defensive lines around southern Britain, in a classic example of defense in depth.

The main intention was to protect London and the industrial heartland of England of the German attacks, so another the Taunton Stop Line was set up to serve as defense against the advance from England’s south-west peninsula.

Near the end, about 50 major stop lines were constructed.

In June 1940 the British Army had 22 infantry divisions, which were at almost half strength, had only one-sixth of their normal artillery and were lacking almost full transport. Plus, they had only one armored division.

The estimate number of tanks Britain own after the fall of France was, according to Churchill, of about 102 cruiser tanks, 132 infantry tanks and 252 light tanks, so we can see that they were not as disarmed as the Germans foolishly thought they were.

By the six of June, 1940, the British Army had gathered field artillery enough for 15 divisions, medium artillery enough for 10 divisions and heavy artillery to fill 12 divisions. As for tanks they had 141 cruiser tanks, 140 infantry tanks and 407 light tanks. They were more than ready to defend Britain from the Germans.

Plus, they had 1.15 millions of rifles, 14,023 Bren guns and 6,676 boys AT, enough to arm the whole Royal Army.

Finally by August 31, the infantry was 274; they had about 3765 tanks, including the cruiser ones.

Germany was defeated because they expected a weak Britain, easy to take over, but they gave the British too much time to rearm themselves.

By: Analucia Castagnino

USA Position in the Pearl Hardbord

The Pearl Harbor attack was carried out by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, was directed at the Pacific Fleet of the U.S. Navy and air forces that were defending the area.

The goal of the attack, led by Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi, was to neutralize the enemy's fleet for a long period, with the aim of occupying the western colonies in Southeast Asia. Once weakened the U.S. militarily, Japan would look for a negotiation of peace with favorable conditions. The Japanese High Command wanted to avoid a long war, but although the Japanese Empire was victorious in action, failed to win a decisive victory.

U.S. forces in civilian and military intelligence information gathered between both of them, enough to anticipate the Japanese aggression weeks or perhaps months before the attack. There were numerous warnings to the armed forces at Pearl Harbor the day of the attack. These sources could have been able to increase the level of alert and make the attack had been a failure or at least less harmful. The U.S. Army and Navy had intercepted several meaningful messages but the distribution of this information was incomplete, contradictory or insufficient. Alerts were sent to the U.S. forces in the Pacific during November 1940. Despite the growing information suggesting a new phase of Japanese aggression, there was little specific information on Pearl Harbor.

U.S. commanders were warned that launching torpedoes in shallow water were possible, but they did not fully appreciate the danger posed by the Japanese secret torpedoes. Thinking that Pearl Harbor had natural defenses against torpedo attacks, the U.S. Navy decided that it was unnecessary to further protect the harbor

On the morning of the attack, the radar station "Opana Point" U.S. Army detected the Japanese force, but the alert was confused with the expected arrival of U.S. B-17 aircraft and was discarded. Several U.S. aircraft were shot down as it approached the attack, at least one of them radioed an alert something incoherent. Other alerts were still being processed or awaiting confirmation when the attack began.

The crews of the ships awoke to the sounds of bombs and screams of "fire and rescue teams take a stand" and "All hands on deck, we are bombarded". Despite the lack of preparation, which included ammunition stores closed and planes grouped, were U.S. military personnel who served during the Battle distinguished.In total, fourteen sailors and officers received the Medal of Honor. A special award, the Pearl Harbor Commemorative Medal, was later given to all military veterans of the attack.

The elimination of the battleships left the U.S. no choice but to rely on the few aircraft carriers and submarines, these being most of what was left unscathed, these were also the weapons that the United States halted and reversed the Japanese advance, only the actions of the USS Enterprise sank more of Japanese ships and shot down more aircraft than any of its Japanese peers.

The loss of the battleships proved to be really less important than Japan and the United States had thought before the attack and also right after it, in fact, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor led literally result in the sinking of the battleship concept as weapon.

By: Maria Claudia Villar and Andrea Alva

The beginning of the liberation of Western Europe

"The Allied landing on the coast of Normandy" at the end of World War II, a fact that took place on June 6, 1944, in the so-called "D-Day".

It is not just the military operation, but everything that surrounded it and all that involved. The Allies prepared more than 150,000 soldiers to the initial assault. On the German side hundreds of thousands of soldiers were waiting on the French beaches.

The D-Day had been planned for over a year, and those who participated in the invasion were trained for months. The air and sea assault depended on a combination of factors, including the weather, tide levels and, most importantly, the surprise. It was the whole game involving strategy and ingenuity, and doubts that preceded and followed this massive amphibious operation what make it possible to succeed.

Allied strategists had used every means to make believe that the landing would take place at the Pas of Calais. They don’t hesitate to create false military camps.

Any further delay implied the risk of alerting the Germans, and it was crucial that they were taken by surprise. Any clue of where and when the Allies would land, would have been, for sure, a disaster, as this would have allowed the Germans to concentrate all their firepower at the most vulnerable moment of the allies, during his landing on the beaches of Normandy.

D-Day Success was not guaranteed and the decision would have meant a military and political disaster and the commander of the allied forces, Dwight D.

The day of the attack caught by surprise the German commanders, most of whom were not present. They thought that "due to weather" that day there would be no invasion.However, the landing began on June 6 and thousands of soldiers from both sides fought and died on the beaches. The Allies were imposed, but the tenacity of the German defense show that the battle may have been won by anyone, especially if Hitler had authorized the use of its reserves in time.

Despite the nonchalant reaction of the Germans, the Allies found stiff resistance along the roads and in the villages of northern France. But thanks to the large number of troops and the support of the bombers were able to break through.

One key to success was the extreme secrecy, aided by an excellent distraction campaign that convinced Hitler that the main attack would be at the Pas of Calais rather than Normandy and at a later date. This strategy was so successful that when the Allies landed in Normandy, Hitler was convinced that it was a distraction and retain vital forces claimed unsuccessfully German Marshal Rommel, in charge of the defense.

D-Day was a deployment of preparations and plans of attack and defense. For the Allies, the big day had numerous delays and for the Germans was all a mystery. There were many conflicts, including fighting between the Allies to designate what the best front and the best form of attack. The Germans believed that they were invincible, suffered the consequences of the lateness of the preparations because when the day had less than half the weapons they had ordered.

However, despite all these drawbacks, the D-Day took place as it could, which ended with the defeat of the German defense. D Day marks the beginning of the Allied invasion of Western Europe in June 1944, marking the beginning of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

By: Maria Claudia Villar

The attempt of German Officers against Hitler

The Battle of Stalingrad are a series of battles that took place in 1942 and 1943. German troops were coming of a great victory in the blitzkrieg and were advancing but there was a time when the German army was divided, with the objective of occupying the city of Stalingrad. In August 1942, the German Sixth Army, under the command of General Friedrich von Paulus, advanced toward Stalingrad, initiating a period of terrible street fighting to try to bring out to the Russian forces in the city.

It didn’t seem difficult to occupy that city, but at the first sign of invasion population and the Red Army showed a sign of great resistance. at the beginning 500,000 inhabitants of Stalingrad showed great courage and offer but when Paulus, German general, start the assault all Russian not useful for resistance had already been evacuated. During the battle the Russians crossed the Volga all night to leave wounded on the other side and pick up supplies and ammunition and through the river also arrive reinforcements.

On September 22 "Messerschmitt clouds" were launched against Stalingrad. Tens of bombers attacked the city's neighborhoods. Following the air strike began advancing infantry troops. In October, more than a thousand of the aircraft bombed daily. As of October the Nazis were bombing the territory of the factory Barricade. But the Nazis failed to break the resistance of the Red Army soldiers.

Von Paulus's army, increasingly exhausted and demoralized, unable to prevent the Soviet encirclement. On 23 November the German Sixth Army was completely surrounded. More than a quarter of a million German troops and other Axis allies had been fenced. Hitler ordered Von Paulus continue resistance.

Since the last offensive of the Red Army started, the Germans do not fought only died, on December 18 Paulus inspected his front and saw that the fighting spirit and the general physical condition of his men slowly disintegrated. Strict rationing was imposed to try to spend the winter. Paulus who was a great admirer of Hitler, he realized that for the Führer or what was left of him, the sixth Army was nothing more than an expendable piece in the game of war, the lives of the soldiers had no significance for him .

Hitler's refusal to give up the important city of Stalingrad, meant the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides, and more than one million Russian civilians. Stalingrad marked the end of German hopes of capturing the Caucasus and Volga river control. In addition, many German army officers were convinced that Hitler was leading Germany to disaster, some participating in the 1944 attempt on Hitler.

In July 1944, the unrest had become a principle of conspiracy. On the 20th, at Wolfsschanze, Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia, Lieutenant Colonel Stauffenberg of Staff, entered a conference room where Hitler was meeting with the supreme commanders.

Stauffenberg mission was to make the attempt on Hitler that would allow an exit from the war negotiated with the Allies. However, the conspiracy failed. The explosion occurred, injuring 19 officers and multiple damages caused, but Hitler was not dead. Soon after, Hitler unleashed a chase that ended with the murder and imprisonment of numerous and experienced officers.

Since then Hitler preferred to surround himself with controls were he rescued because of their devotion to his leadership. Hitler, meanwhile, felt safer. His decision, was frankly unfortunate for their purposes.

By: Maria Claudia Villar

Economic effects of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The morning of 6 of August 1945 a single atomic bomb called “Little Boy” exploded over the city of Hiroshima at 8:15, devastating almost the entire metropolis.

“Little Boy” was 10 feet long, weighted 9,000 pounds, and was dropped from a height of 31,600 feet, exploding at 2,000 above Hiroshima with the force of 20K tons of TNT.

A conventional bomb would have destroyed only the wooden structures within a 40 meters radius, but the atomic bomb that smashed Hiroshima was able to affect everything within a radius of 2 kilometers of the point of explosion. Altogether an area of 13 square kilometers was reduced to ashes and 80% of the 76,000 buildings in the city were burned down.

60,000 buildings over 90,000 were completely demolish, leaving about 140,000 citizens homeless, causing, in some cases, even death. 5,000 feet northeast of ground zero great damages could still be seen. To be able to rebuild the city, Japan had to invest many years and billions of dollars.

The “fire-wind”   gave a roughly circular shape of 4.4 square miles which were completely burned. More than half the bridges in the city were destroyed, along with heavy damages to roads and railroads, which impeded communications with other cities, making it really hard to make a recount of the damages and figure out what to do. Transportation systems in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely crushed, along with electrical signal systems.

Before the atomic bomb struck the city of Hiroshima, its population was about 310,000 civilians, plus 40,000 military and 20,000 daytime workers, the entire explosion of the atomic bomb killed about 140,000 persons.

For the ones left it was almost impossible to  find a job, so the Japanese economy was stuck on its knees. (This caused the Japanese economy to get stuck on its knees)

Three days after the Hiroshima attack, the B-26 bomber hit Nagasaki with a second atomic bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man”, it had the power of 22 kilotons of TNT and weighted 4, 50 kg.

The bomb exploded about 500m above a residential area, full of schools, factories, and houses. Within a radius of 1 kilometer, the explosion of pressure and heat smashed immediately houses and other structures, turning them into ashes. The Mitsubishi Steel Works complex bent and twisted like jelly and the concrete roofs of the National Schools collapse.

22.7% of the 51,000 buildings in the entire city were completely destroyed or severely damaged.

Such as the Mitsubishi company, many others big corporations were destroyed by this second atomic bomb, leaving Japan with less industry than before and nowhere to rely on.

The surveys done afterwards estimate the number of persons affected by the Hiroshima to be between 70,000 and 80,000, with an equal number injured, while the number of victim at Nagasaki was over 35,000.

The economic impact of both attacks required many decades for Japan to recover the financial status it had always own. It was an expensive rehabilitation but they made it, and now Japan is back into the top ten more economically influent countries.

By: Analucia Castagnino 

Effects of the attack on Pearl Harbor Battle

Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, was attacked by the Japanese torpedo and bomber planes on December 7, 1941. The sneak attack sparked outrage in the American populace, news media, government and the world. The Japanese raid arrived in two groups, totaling 353 planes, which were assigned to attack different air bases across the island of the Oahu and Pearl Harbor.

“Yesterday December 7th, 1941 The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan”(Franklin D. Roosevelt, December 8, 1941)

The Japanese had developed a shallow running torpedo that would skim the surface of the water in the Pearl Harbor after being dropped from a low-flying aircraft. The primary targets were the aircraft carriers and the battleships that were among 92 naval vessels at anchor in the Pearl Harbor. About 360 Japanese attack planes had launched at dawn from aircraft carriers in an attack force of about 33 ships, causing immediately the destruction of the United States ships.

The Principal effects that this battle caused were that military started to believe in the value of the newly developed radar installation, before then they didn’t have much confidence, but the radar operator had seen a rather large indication of incoming aircraft and blamed it on birds instead of the possibility of the Japanese invasion. By destroying the main fighting power of United States Pacific fleet at Pearl, the Japanese were given free reign for about a year in the pacific. They ran a brilliant campaign and conquered territories.

Pearl Harbor may have been a military disaster for the United States, but it also unified the nation behind the war effort. The US fleet was rebuilt very fast and they started preparing their self for the war. The worst effect that this conflict gave was the United States declaration of war against Japan. US wanted to stay away from the war but with this problem they didn’t have many options. This made them change their neutral status.

This attack also caused the deaths of 2,000 American servicemen and 68 civilians and wounded 1100 other Americans. Making United States military weaker.

A good effect of this is that when the Americans enter to the war, they controlled it a little bit, and they also had the opportunity to save Jewish people in Germany and Poland. They also made an alliance with Great Britain and the most powerful countries against Germany and Japan, and this made Germany weaker causing the end of the Second World War.

We can conclude that this conflict had bad effects like lots of life lost in United States and also Japanese and the declaration of war form US to Japan, but it also had good things like the liberation of Jews in Poland and Germany and also the end of the war, because when US enter to the war, they made alliances with the powerful countries causing the extermination of Germany in the war, and also if Germany was defeated, the countries that had alliances with them like Japan would be out of the war too making the end of it.

By: Andrea Alva

Life of the Jews in Poland during WW2

Before the WWII 3 million, 3 hundred thousand of Jewish people lived in Poland, approximately ten per cent of the total population. For centauries Poland has been one of the largest and most significant Jewish communities in the world. This country was the center of the Jewish culture since the middle Ages. The Jewish population made up about one-third of the population of cities in central Poland.

It started with the invasion of Germany to Poland on September 1 in 1939, when the second WW just begin. After the Soviet army invaded Poland from the east, Jews are liable for forced labor. They can be picked up off the streets for work at manual labors jobs such as digging ditches, cleaning streets and shoveling snow. October 1939, Jews were forbidden form certain areas of major cities. In the past two months things got worse, and they need to wear an indentifying star or clothing that would be easy recognized as a Jew, they can’t change residence and the curfew for Jews enforced from 9 pm to 5 am. The control for the Jews people was getting stricter, they can’t travel by train without a special permission, and they needed to register their properties including furniture, jewelry and clothing. April 1940 the first major ghetto was built, at Lodz. They began sending groups of Jews to the ghettos. Mass deportations of Jews, Gypsies and Poles, because the amount of people star increasing, The Nazis were forced to built new ghettos, Warsaw and Crackow ghettos were built by the year of 1940.

In 1941 all Jews needed to be in the ghettos and they were forbidden to leave, if they escape or somebody would try to help them escape, the punishment would be the death penalty. Its population reached one half of a million people who vegetated under terrible conditions, suffering from hunger and diseases.

December 1941 concentration camps begin their operations. Poland is the site of six major concentration camps set up to kill Jews.

 March 1942, Jews from Lublin ghetto were deported to Belzec death camp. Nazis began sending people from the ghettos to concentration camps. By 1943 many of the ghettos like Crackow, Lvov and Warsaw were liquidate and the people were sent to concentration camps. This pattern is repeated in every Polish city with a ghetto population. 

Germany was losing power and more powerful countries were against them. By 1944 the red army of the Soviet Union crosses Poland. This made a little of stability on Poland. January 17, 1945 Germany evacuate the ruins of Warsaw and the Soviet army start doing alliances with the Polish people and in April 30 begins the battle of Berlin, Soviet Union and some Polish people  against  Germany. This generates a series of problems that made Germany’s priorities change, and some countries like United States and Great Britain, took this as an opportunity to save Jews people.  By the end of this year and the beginning of 1946, lots of Jews people were saved. Poland lost about 6 million dead in WW2, of whom about a half were Jews, with only fifty to seventy thousand surviving. 

By: Andrea Alva