Questions for WW2 historians to know this?(10 points for answering all questions)?

Question

Why Adolf Hitler deciced to invaded Russia and Japan bombed the Pearl Harbor that brought USA to enter a war on Germany and Japan and also Italy? Why Adolf Hitler would want to control entire of Europe and Africa and other nations? Why didn't Desert Fox (Rommel, the greatest general in WW2) go futher to the heart of Africa then into the south but went to the Middle East? And last question, Why Japan want to control entire of Pafici Ocean? And why Japan would want control countries that are mostly made of islands countires (expect China)?

Of course. It true what she said on that first answer but I really need to know why and or what happening during in those WW2.

Answer 1

Answer 1 - The Invasion of Russia
June 22, 1941 - December 1941
Adolf Hitler had convinced himself by December 1940 that England lay prostrate before German air power. November had seen the worst of the air attacks; acres of England’s cities were reduced to rubble. Hitler believed she would never rise again to threaten Germany.

Before invading Poland, Germany signed the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, securing the eastern border of Germany. Limited trade, mostly on the part of the Russians, was part of the agreement. But everyone involved knew that it was a measure on both sides to buy time. Ideologically, both nations despised the other. Hitler had devoted much of Mein Kampf to his believe in the menace of Communism. Nazism was against everything Communism stood for.

Part of the operational planning of the German high command involved a possible invasion of the Soviet Union. On July 21, a month after the fall of France, Hitler summoned Generalfeldmarshal Walther von Brauchitsch and instructed him to plan for an invasion of the Soviet Union.

The bad blood between the two countries began to be evident during Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov’s Berlin visit of November 12-13, 1940. Molotov pressed the Nazis to honor their treaty obligation to distance themselves from Finland. Hitler dropped tacit suggestions to look towards Asia and not Europe for the expansion of Soviet interests and power.

The High Command developed plans for an invasion as part of their routine operations. First called Fritz and then Directive 21, Hitler seized on the idea of invading Russia and issued the directive, renaming it Operation Barbarossa in honor of Frederick I, the twelfth century Prussian King who was prophesied to rise from his grave and restore Germany to world power. Operational orders were given in January 1941.

The plan called for a ten-week campaign that would start on May 15, 1941. But events around the world changed the plan; the Afrika Korps landed in North Africa in February; Yugoslavia, a supposed ally of Germany, threw back the offer of German assistance; and Italy needed help to conquer Greece.

The invasion was pushed back five weeks to June 22. Almost everyone knew it was coming except the Red Army soldiers about to meet the onslaught. Josef Stalin was warned by his intelligence services. The buildup of German forces on the Soviet line in Poland was obvious, and even the British warned Stalin, but he stubbornly refused his commanders permission to prepare defenses. Trainloads of iron ore left Russia bound for Germany even hours before the invasion. This came out of a long ideological belief that war should be fought on the enemies’ soil, and a misguided hope that the invasion could be stalled if Hitler was not provoked.

Hitler was not going be dissuaded, however. Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, among others, tried to convince Hitler that significant gains could be made politically. Goering felt the Luftwaffe would be taxed trying to attack England and Russia at the same time; Ribbentrop saw the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact as the crowning achievement of his career. The Wehrmacht Generals that would carry out the operation wanted an all-out drive on Moscow. Hitler, in a uncharacteristic show of orthodox military strategy, insisted on a three-pronged, broad frontal assault on three major areas before driving on the Soviet Capital. The German military attaché in Moscow was alone in the belief that Soviet industrial capacity beyond the Urals was underestimated.

Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH,) the German High Command on the Eastern Front, massed the greatest army ever assembled to invade the Soviet Union. One hundred forty-eight divisions (114 infantry, fifteen motorized, and nineteen panzer;) 67,000 German Norwegian garrison troops and 500,000 Finns; and 150,000 Rumanians were recruited to take up the invasion. A total of 3,050,000 men, 7184 artillery pieces, 3,350 tanks, 2,770 aircraft, 600,000 vehicles, and 625,000 horses (one quarter of the Wehrmacht was horse-drawn) were arrayed in three prongs aimed at the Soviet Union. Feldmarshal Wilhelm von Leeb’s Army Group North attacked through Finland and Poland, targeting the Baltic States and Leningrad. Generalfeldmarshall Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center leapt from Poland and East Prussia against Minsk and Smolesk. Generalfeldmarshal Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group South left from Czechoslovakia for the Ukraine and the Caucasus Mountains.

Ten thousand tanks and 2,300 aircraft operated by 2,300,000 men stood against this coiled armada. While most of the equipment was old or obsolete, the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 heavy tanks were better than the Germans’ best. Unlike the Germans, who were flush with success and experience, the Red Army was quixotic. It was surprised by the resistance of the Finns and the failure of its junior officers in 1939, but smashed the Japanese in a border dispute in China.

The Red Army was paralyzed by Stalin’s purges. Officers would not move without direct orders, stifling imaginative tactics and leadership. The High Command had more political than military ability.

When the barrage opened on the morning of June 22, 1941, Red Army units were slow to react. Officers radioed for permission to fire back. Tanks numbering in the hundreds were knocked out of action by superior tactics backed by superior morale. The Red Air Force was destroyed on the ground.

Only seven Red Army divisions opposed Army Group North as it swept down from Finland. Quickly the Baltic states fell, and the populations celebrated the German columns marching in, thinking they were their liberators. By July 1 Army Group North reached the Dvina River. Army Group Center moved around the north edge of the Pripet Marshes and encircled first Bialystok and then Minsk by the second week. 290,000 prisoners were taken in this operation. Army Group South was marching on Kiev despite heavy rains.

Stalin was paralyzed by Hitler's betrayal of the Nazi-soviet nonaggression Pact and by the destruction and did not react to the crisis in time. While he sat in Moscow paralyzed by the rapid advance, the Red Army was bleeding to death. Across a huge front of 1400 miles, the Germans started advancing rapidly. The Red Army fought fiercely partly out of fear of being shot for cowardice and partly because they feared a German occupation. But many Soviet units were deployed badly and their commanders would not mount a mobile defense for fear of the firing squad. The Germans destroyed Russian units and rounded up large numbers of prisoners.

OKH believed the Russians could not sustain this level of casualties. On July 3, Colonel General Franz Halder announced that the Germans would encounter only token resistance beyond the Dnieper and Dvina Rivers. Hitler concluded that the Russians had lost the war.

As the Germans advanced as much as twenty miles a day, the Red Army slowly began to reorganize in the face of the enemy. On June 30, Stalin appointed himself the head of the State Defense Committee, and assumed all political, military and economic power in the country. On July 10, the Russians also split their forces into a three-group command structure, designated Northwest, West and Southwest Forces. These were nothing like the Germans’ Army Groups, since their officers lacked the expertise or authority to direct large-scale operations. Each border military district was converted into a “front” which was the largest effective command the Russians could coordinate.

For the first time, the Russian people heard the voice of their leader. Stalin addressed the entire country on July 3. He welcomed aid from the West and proclaimed a scorched-earth policy, denying the Germans everything and calling for the Russians already under occupation to fight hard against the invaders. He also appealed not only to communist ideals but to Russian nationalism.

Throughout July and August, the Germans continued to advance. Army group North planned to launch their final drive for Leningrad on August 10. Army Group Center took its two panzer groups out of action for a refit on August 8 after capturing 138,000 prisoners in one week. Army Group South destroyed twenty Soviet divisions that were trying to escape across the Dnieper. On August 25, units from two Army Groups surrounded 665,000 Red Army soldiers who were 150 miles east of Kiev.

The Finnish Army reoccupied their 1940 border on August 31 and was within 30 miles of Leningrad. Leningrad was cut off on September 8. Hitler transferred Army Group North’s armor south for a drive on Moscow.

The Germans were surprised by the Red Army’s equipment, especially the T-34. German 37mm and 50mm guns could not even dent the T-34 sloping frontal armor. Guns of 105mm had to be employed to stop them. As a stopgap measure, the Germans retooled and mounted captured Russian 75mm guns on panzer pzkpfw I chassis.

On September 8 Hitler had decided to concentrate his forces on Moscow. His generals believed the Soviets would bring together all their remaining forces to defend the capital, and there the decisive battle could be fought.

For six weeks, the men of Army Group Center were rested and refitted. A first-class unit, within two weeks of engaging battle, it had completed three large encirclements near Bryansk and Vyazma. Six hundred sixty-three thousand prisoners of war were taken. The population of Moscow went to the outskirts of the city and dug antitank ditches.

This action ended the first phase of the War in the West. The Soviet Red Army lost some 3,000,000 killed and millions more captured. Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of operations for Oberkommando des West (OKW), predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in the near future.

Two perennial allies of the Soviet Union were beginning to be felt by both sides. Torrential rains turned the roads into quagmires, slowing the advance on Moscow. ’General Mud’ had slowed Napoleon in 1812, and it slowed the German advance in 1941. The second was the expansive Soviet territory. The great distance the Germans had to travel began to extend their supply lines over great distances. Partisans, first disorganized and cut off, then later with plainclothes officers of the Red Army, began to harass these supply lines. Without enough soldiers to protect the supply lines and fight the main engagement, the Germans used innovative means to protect trains and columns advancing to the front. Still, the guerillas were a constant threat.

Army Group South still managed to encircle Sevastapol by November. Rostov fell on November 20, but in their first successful counteroffensive, the Russians took it back by the beginning of December. Army Group Center advanced on Tikhvin and took the town on November 8, but again mud bogged down the attack, and the Russians attacked on three sides. By the middle of December the Russians forced them back to Volkhov.

Everybody knew that the key to the war was Moscow. Stalin was still in a panic when German reconnaissance units advanced on Moscow’s outskirts in November. But ’General Winter,’ the Russians’ other ancestral ally, froze the Germans’ equipment in the mud. Army Group Center Commander von Back argued for a winter advance, despite questions of whether or not to wait for the spring to advance on the city.

The Germans’ supply issues were becoming critical. Like the Americans in Belgium in 1944, the length of their supply lines meant that winter uniforms had to sacrificed for food, ammunition and fuel on the trains and supply wagons. The German Armies before Moscow were fighting in December 1941 with the same uniforms that they had in the summer. With only 40 miles between von Bock and the Soviet capital, the Germans had only a few days of good weather to complete their occupation of Moscow.

The capital was in terror. Armed troops tried to keep order and prevent a mass evacuation until it was organized. Stalin himself left the city. But by December 5 Heinz Guderian, hero of France and commander of the panzer spearhead from the South, reported that his troops were exhausted and could not continue. The German general charged with taking Moscow, Colonel General Heinz Reinhardt, said he could only hold if the Russians did not attack.

Stalin feared that the Japanese would attack his East flank if he withdrew his troops there to fight the Germans. The Siberian units were snow-equipped, battle-experienced, and ready for combat. But Stalin did not bring them over to the European front until Richard Sorge, the Soviet spy in Tokyo, revealed the Japanese plans to attack the Western powers in the south Pacific.

Meanwhile, the German front-line units were reporting previously unrecognized Red Army unit designations in radio transmissions and POW debriefings. Clearly the Soviets were rebuilding the Red Army, and initial reports of its size were wrong. OKH took these reports in stride and stuck to their assessment that the war would be over soon.

In fact, the Red Army was rebuilt under three powerful generals that would fight through the entire conflict. At dawn on December 6, the Red Army counterattacked along three fronts that intersected Moscow. General Georgi K. Zhukov’s West Front, the Kalinin Front under Colonel General Ivan S. Konev, and the Southwest Front under Semyon k. Timoshenko exploded in artillery fire and the great counteroffensive began. The Army Group commanders and Brauchtisch resigned after clamoring for Hitler to permit a retreat. They all went off to retirement, and Hitler took command personally. He was growing tired of the professional military men and wanted to motivate the troops with the knowledge that he was personally commanding them. On December 18 Hitler ordered that all units were to fight to the death. Without proper plans for defense, or even the ability to dig into the hard frozen Russian soil, the Germans could not mount an effective resistance.

On January 15, 1942, Hitler authorized the first German retreat of the war. Army Group Center moved its line 85 miles to the West of Moscow, not far enough to escape the growing danger of encirclement. A gap 160 miles wide tore open the German lines between Army Group North and Army Group Center. One hundred thousand German troops were surrounded in February and supplied by air. A year later this convinced Hitler to believe Goering's claim that he could supply the Sixth Army besieged at Stalingrad.

The Red Army did not have the military ability to complete the encirclement of Army Group Center. By mid-February the Soviets had lost the momentum, and both sides used the early spring to stabilize their lines while the rains and mud prevented serious operations.

Stalin and Hitler had something in common: they took complete command of their armies, limiting their generals’ range of mobility without specific orders. Two totalitarian leaders made the war take on their own personalities. More and more, nationalism and ideology described the mission of each side as the total destruction of the other. The soldiers of both sides began to regain their confidence in their own abilities and that of their absolute rulers.

On April 5, Hitler outlined his spring and summer plans to his subordinates at his Eastern command post in Rastenberg, East Prussia. While units of Army Group North would attempt top link up with the Finns and knock Leningrad out of the war, the major offensive would be in the south. Its objective was a city named for the Soviet leader, and both sides would pour the life’s blood of their army into its streets.

Stalingrad was the key to the oil-rich Caucasus. First, Army Group South would take the Crimea, then they would advance on the city. It would be the battleground that would break the power of the Third Reich.

The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941 (local time - it was Monday the 8th in Japan). The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine defensive squadrons. The U.S. public was angered by the attack and rallied in support of the Armed Forces and the US Government's decision to enter World War II, initially against the Empire of Japan.

The attack severely damaged or destroyed twelve American warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians. However, the Pacific Fleet's three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were the base's vital oil tank farms, submarine pens, and machine shops. Using these resources, the United States was able to rebound within a year.

This attack has also been called the "bombing of Pearl Harbor" and the "Battle of Pearl Harbor" but, most commonly, the "attack on Pearl Harbor" or simply "Pearl Harbor".

Answer 2 - Germany and its six allies were known as the Axis. The Allied and Axis countries circled the globe in World War II. The Allies mobilized about 62 million men and women, while the Axis mobilized about half that number.

The goal of the Axis powers was simple. Germany intended to build up a powerful empire by occupying territory to the east and south. Then, after overrunning France, it would use air assaults to force Britian to make peace. German troops would then defeat the Soviet Union, capture the Caucasus oilfields, and implement Hitler's plan for a European New Order. Hitler had two aims: the first to seize all of Europe and North Africa so he could dominate the Mediterranean, and the second to wipe out Communism and eliminate the Jews. His ally, Benito Mussolini, had his own aims: domination of both the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Italy hoped to take advantage of German successes to grab territory for itself. Japan intended to cripple the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, then quickly overrun Thailand, Malaya, the Philippines, and the Netherlands East Indies. It would then complete its conquest of China, and unite all East Asia under Japanese domination in a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan had no plans for invading the United States mainland.

The European/North African Theater

In 1935, Hitler established military conscription for all German men, created an air force, and began to build submarines. The Treaty of Versailles limited Germany to a 100,000-man army, but Hitler's army soon numbered 600,000. Hitler's plan to seize all of Europe was set into motion on March 7, 1936, when he sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. That was followed by moves into Austria and Czechoslovakia, and finally, on September 1, 1939, German forces invaded Poland. That brought a declaration of war from France and Britain. Some historians believe that the Soviet Union leadership knew in the spring or early summer of 1939 that Germany planned to invade Poland in September. Thus, the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany just two weeks before the attack. The U.S.S.R. promised to remain neutral in case Germany went to war. They also made a secret aggreement to divide Poland with the Germans after the conquest. Also, despite having signed a non-agression treaty with Joseph Stalin, Hitler turned on his ally and prepared to become the master of Europe. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941.



The North African Campaign, also known as the Desert War, took place in the North African desert from 1940 to 1943. It was quite important in strategic terms, with the Mediterranean and the British African Empire at stake. It was the only theater in which the Western Allies engaged both German and Italian ground forces. Fighting in the region began when Germany's ally, Italy, attacked British-occupied areas. Hitler did not want British planes within striking distance of his one major oil source, the Ploiesti fields in Romania, and in November 1940, he prepared his soldiers to join in the fight.

A decisive battle held in the North African campaign was the Battle of Tunisia, or Tunisia Campaign, in which Germany and Italy fought against the Allied forces comprising primarily the United States and Britain. More than 275,000 German and Italian prisoners of war were taken. Following seesawing control of Libya and parts of Egypt, British Commonwealth forces succeeded in pushing the Axis back. The dispersion of the Axis forces throughout Europe during this time was an important reason why the Allies were able to gain the upper hand in North Africa. Hitler was preoccupied with the Russian front and many divisions of the German army were already committed to it. North Africa was essentially used as a springboard for the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and Italy in September of the same year.

Along with worldwide domination, Hitler also aimed to rid the world of various ethnic, religious, national, and secular groups. The Holocaust began in 1941 and continued until 1945. The goal of the Nazis was to attempt, on an industrial scale, to assemble and exterminate as many people as possible. Concentration camps were established and mass executions carried out. The Jews of Europe were the main targets, but Hitler also targeted Poles, Slavs, gypsies, the disabled, and gay men. By the end of the war, approximately six million people had been killed by the German Gestapo or the SS.

The Battle of Britain, which lasted from July 10 to October 31, 1940, was the first major battle of World War II. It was also one of the turning points in the war, because the British showed that they could defeat the Luftwaffe, or German air force. The battle was unique, in that it was the only battle ever fought entirely in the air, even to this day.

The Battle of Normandy was fought between invading American, British, and Canadian forces, and German forces occupying Western Europe. Preparations for the invasion began early in 1943, when the Allies set up a planning staff. Roosevelt and Churchill selected General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. On June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops and 30,000 vehicles landed along a 50-mile front of fortified French coastline and began fighting on the beaches of Normandy. It was to be known as D-Day. The invasion, code named Operation Overlord, remains the largest seaborne invasion in history.

The Battle of the Bulge, which began in December 1944, was so named because of the bulging shape of the front on a map. The battle was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War II. It is the largest battle the United States Army has fought to date. In its entirety, the Battle of the Bulge was the worst — in terms of losses — for the American Forces during World War II, with more than 80,000 American casualties.

Late in April 1945, the head of the German home guard and dreaded Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler, tried to negotiate a peace with Great Britain and the United States. Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin on April 30. The Allies demanded that German troops on all fronts surrender. Early in the morning on May 7, Col. General Alfred Jodl of the German high command entered Allied headquarters in Reims, France, and signed the terms of unconditional surrender. Lt. General Walter B. Smith, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, signed for the Allies. After five years, eight months, and seven days, the European phase of World War II ended.

Answer 3 - The battle for North Africa was a struggle for control of the Suez Canal and access to oil from the Middle East and raw materials from Asia. Oil in particular had become a critical strategic commodity due to the increased mechanization of modern armies. Britain, which was the first major nation to field a completely mechanized army, was particularly dependent on the Middle Eastern oil. The Suez Canal also provided Britain with a valuable link to her overseas dominions--part of a lifeline that ran through the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, the North African campaign and the naval campaign for the Mediterranean were extensions of each other in a very real sense.

The struggle for control of North Africa began as early as October 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia from its colony Italian Somaliland. That move made Egypt very wary of Italy's imperialistic aspirations. In reaction, the Egyptians granted Britain permission to station relatively large forces in their territory. Britain and France also agreed to divide the responsibility for maintaining naval control of the Mediterranean, with the main British base located at Alexandria, Egypt.

Italy was the wild card in the Mediterranean strategic equation at the outset of WWII. If the Italians remained neutral, British access to the vital sea lanes would remain almost assured. If Italy sided with Germany, the powerful Italian navy had the capability to close the Mediterranean. The navy's main base was at Taranto in southern Italy, and operations from there would be supported by Italian air force units flying from bases in Sicily and Sardinia.

Italy did remain neutral when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. When Germany invaded France in June 1940, however, Benito Mussolini could not resist the opportunity to grab his share of the spoils. On June 11, 1940, six days after the British evacuation at Dunkirk, France, Italy declared war on Britain and France. Britain and Italy were now at war in the Mediterranean.

On paper, at least, Italy enjoyed a considerable advantage over Britain in the Mediterranean theater of operations. In June 1939, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham's Mediterranean Fleet had only 45 combat ships against the Italian navy's 183. The Italians held an especially large edge in submarines, with 108 against Cunningham's 12. The French surrender on June 25, 1940, placed the entire burden of controlling of the Mediterranean sea lanes on the Royal Navy.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) was in a slightly better position, with 205 aircraft against the Italian air force's 313 planes. On the ground, Italian Marshal Rodolfo Graziani had some 250,000 troops in Libya, while General Lord Archibald Percival Wavell, British commander in chief of the Middle East, had only 100,000 troops to defend Egypt, Sudan and Palestine. The British ground forces, however, were far better organized, trained and equipped and had superior leadership.

The British and Italian armies faced each other across the Libyan-Egyptian border in an area known as the Western Desert. It was an inhospitable region with no vegetation and virtually no water. From Mersa Matruh in western Egypt to El Agheila on the east side of Libya's Gulf of Sidra, only one major road connected the region's few towns and villages. A sandy coastal strip of varying width ran along the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Inland, a sharp escarpment rose to the 500-foot-high Libyan Plateau. There were only a few passes where wheeled or even tracked vehicles could ascend the escarpment. Once on the plateau, however, military vehicles had good cross-country mobility across limestone ground covered by a thin layer of sand. The commander of Germany's 21st Panzer Division, Lt. Gen. Johann von Ravenstein, described the area as a tactician's paradise and a logistician's hell.

On September 13, 1940, Graziani reluctantly moved into Egypt, almost a month after he had been ordered to do so by Mussolini. Some six Italian divisions drove east, bypassing a small British covering force along the border, and halted at Sidi Barrani, just short of the main British positions at Mersa Matruh. Graziani apparently had no intention of going any deeper into Egypt. Italian control of the airfield at Sidi Barrani, however, seriously reduced the operational reach of British air power and posed a threat to the Royal Navy in Alexandria. With the Battle of Britain reaching its climax and Great Britain facing a possible German invasion, the British were in no immediate position to counter the Italian thrust.

By October 1940, the threat of a German invasion of the British Isles had eased, and the British began to reinforce Wavell. Through that December, an additional 126,000 Commonwealth troops arrived in Egypt from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and India. On November 11, British naval air power seriously damaged the Italian navy in a surprise attack against Taranto. On December 9, the Western Desert Force, under Lt. Gen. Sir Richard O'Connor, attacked the Italians at Sidi Barrani.

The British pushed the Italian Tenth Army out of Egypt and then, on January 3, 1941, scored a major victory at Bardia, just inside Libya. Driving into Cyrenaica (eastern Libya), the British took the vital port of Tobruk on January 22. O'Connor continued to pursue the Italians, trapping them at Beda Fomm on February 7, 1941. The Italian Tenth Army collapsed. In two months, a British force of about two divisions had advanced 500 miles, destroyed 10 Italian divisions, and captured 130,000 prisoners, 380 tanks and 845 guns. In the process, the British had suffered 555 dead and 1,400 wounded.

Following the British successes in North Africa, Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided on February 22 to commit British troops to defend Greece against the Axis. Most of those forces came out of Cyrenaica, which left Wavell only five brigades in Libya. Just a few weeks earlier, however, Adolf Hitler had decided to shore up the Italians in North Africa by committing German forces. On January 8, the Luftwaffe's Fliegerkorps X arrived in Sicily from Norway and immediately began attacking Allied shipping destined for the Libyan port of Benghazi. That threat forced the British forward units in Libya to resupply through Tobruk, more than 450 miles away.

Two German divisions and two additional Italian divisions began crossing from Italy into Libya. On February 12, Brig. Gen. Erwin Rommel assumed command of the German units that later became the famed Afrika Korps. He lost no time in regaining the initiative. Rommel probed El Agheila on March 24. When he found that the British defenses were thin, he launched a general offensive despite Hitler's orders to maintain an overall defensive posture

Answer 4 - The war in the Pacific essentially began on September 18, 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria, which was known for its natural resources. The Japanese thought that from Manchuria, they could go on to control all of northern China. After Japan had established dominance in China, it could expand elsewhere. The Great Depression, Japan's population explosion, and the need to find new resources and markets to continue as a first-rate power, were other causes of the invasion.

The Japanese struck at a time when most countries were more concerned with the depression than with an invasion in far-off China. The United States introduced a policy of non-recognition, declaring that it would not recognize Japan's conquest. The League of Nations did nothing but condemn Japan formally. Therefore, many consider the invasion of Manchuria as the real start of the war because aggression was not suppressed.

Since 1937, Japan had been buying cotton, gasoline, scrap iron, and aircraft equipment from the United States. After the “undeclared war” between Japan and China began in 1937, most Americans sympathized with the Chinese. In 1938, this led to the United States placing a moral embargo on exporting aircraft to Japan. The government also froze all Japanese assets in the United States. Relations between Japan and the United States became increasingly tense in the fall of 1941.

The Japanese Army and Navy came up with a plan to bomb Pearl Harbor and invade Thailand, the Malay peninsula, and the Philippines. About 7:55 a.m. on December 7, 1941, while negotiations were taking place between Japanese and American diplomats, the Japanese air force and navy attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. More than 2,300 Americans were killed and the the U.S. Pacific Fleet was crippled. Roosevelt gave a speech to a stunned Congress, in which he said that December 7 was "a date which will live in infamy." The United States entered the war against Japan, and would now also have the opportunity to move against Hitler in Europe by aiding the British — this time with forces.

Within a few hours of attacking Pearl Harbor, Japanese bombers struck at American bases on the islands of Guam, Midway, and Wake. Japanese forces advanced through the thick jungles of the Malay Peninsula. They continued their expansion and soon overran Singapore, New Britain, the Admiralty and Solomon Islands, the Philippines, and Manilla.

Just a few short months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a fleet of 16 B-25 army bombers, led by Lt. Colonel James H. Doolittle, took off from the carrier Hornet, about 650 miles from Honshu, Japan. The bombers hit Tokyo and other cities. The raid stunned the Japanese, because they had believed that Allied planes could never reach their homeland. Fifteen of Doolittle’s planes crashed when they ran out of fuel and could not reach bases in China. The Chinese underground helped Doolittle and 63 of his fliers to escape. Throughout the war, Doolittle was known as the "Master of the Calculated Risk."

The Doolittle raid helped convince the Japanese that they would have to expand their defense boundaries. Having conquered nearly all of Southeast Asia in just a few short months, Japan planned to seize Port Moresby in southeastern New Guinea. They hoped to cut Allied shipping lanes to Australia, and perhaps even invade that country. But a U.S. task force intercepted a Japanese fleet headed toward Port Moresby in the Coral Sea. The Battle of the Coral Sea ensued, and the two forces fought a four-day battle from May 4 to 8, in which aircraft did all the fighting. It was the first battle in which aircraft carriers attacked each other, and the first naval battle in which neither side's ships sighted the other. The battle was an important Allied strategic victory, which blocked Japan’s push south-eastward.

The most important objectives in Japan’s resumed offensive were the capture of Midway Island, which lies 1,000 miles northwest of Hawaii, and of the Aleutian Islands, west of the Alaska mainland. Japan hoped that by seizing Midway, they could draw the Pacific Fleet away from Hawaii.

Before Pearl Harbor, the United States scored one of its greatest victories by cracking Japan’s secret code. That enabled the Pacific Fleet to know in advance about Japan’s plans for attack. On June 4, 1942, aircraft from the 100-ship Japanese fleet began blasting Midway Island, which was home to the closest remaining U.S. base to Japan. At the end of the two-day battle, Japan had lost four carriers and a major part of its air strength. Battle of Midway proved to be one of the decisive victories in history and was the turning point of the Pacific Campaign. It ended Japanese threats to Hawaii and to the United States, and also stopped the expansion of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific.

The Allies' goal was to capture or neutralize Rabaul, an important enemy base on New Britain Island, north of Australia. They planned an invasion of the nearby Solomon Islands, while other Allied forces approached Rabaul by way of New Guinea. On August 7, 1942, the Allies began their first offensive action in the Pacific. The fighting was some of the most severe of the war, and control of the island seesawed for several months. During that time, the Allies perfected the technique of amphibious warfare - air, land, and sea forces working together as a team. In the Solomons, the Allies fought the first of many jungle campaigns.

Allied strategists believed that the central Pacific fortress of Japan could be cracked. They did not intend to seize each island separately. This would be too costly and take too long. Instead, they decided on a plan of island hopping, or seizing key islands from which to attack the next target, bypassing other targets. The Gilbert Islands were selected as the first major objective in the island-hopping campaign. In many instances the Japanese had studded the islands with barricades, concrete pillboxes, gun emplacements, and bombproof underground shelters. They had been ordered to resist to the very end. Of the 3,000 enemy troops and 1,800 civilian laborers on the island, the marines captured only 147 Japanese and Koreans alive. The U.S. suffered 3,110 casualties in one of the war’s most savage battles.

The Battle for Leyte Gulf was the biggest naval engagement in history from the standpoint of naval tonnage involved. The battle was a decisive victory for the United States. At the end of the battle, on October 26, Japan had lost three battleships, four carriers, 10 cruisers, and nine destroyers. In desperation, the Japanese began to strike back with Kamikazes, or suicide planes. Enemy fliers deliberately crashed their aircraft on Allied warships, knowing that they would be killed. Allied soldiers also learned the fanatical code of bushido, which requires Japanese soldiers to fight to the death. The Japanese believed that surrender meant disgrace, and often preferred suicide to capture.

China became isolated from most of the world when the Japanese cut the Burma Road, which was about 700 miles long and constructed through rough mountain country. It was a remarkable engineering achievement undertaken by the Chinese after the start of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and completed in just one year. It was used to transport war supplies. Traffic increased in importance to China after the Japanese took control of the Chinese coast and Indochina. After the Japanese cut the road, supplies could come only through the air. The U.S. Air Transport Command flew the dangerous 500-mile route, known as the Hump, over the Himalayan Mountains.



Allied strategy to end the war called for an invasion of Japan with the code name Operation Olympic. Allied warships would continue to raid Japanese shipping and coastal areas, and Allied bombers would increase their attacks. Air attacks by long-range B-29 bombers had begun on June 15, 1944, from bases in China. Throughout the summer of 1944, the U.S. 20th Air Force raided Japan, Formosa, and Japanese-held Manchuria, about once a week. The Army Air Force flew more than 15,000 missions against 66 major Japaneses cities, and dropped more than 100,000 tons of incendiary bombs. The Allies held such superiority in the air that early in July 1945, General Carl Spaatz, commander of the U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, publicly announced in advance the names of cities to be bombed.

In July 1945, the heads of government in Britain, Soviet Union and the United States conferred and were told that Japan was willing to negotiate a peace, but unwilling to accept unconditional surrender. An ultimatum was issued, calling for unconditional surrender and a just peace. When Japan ignored the ultimatum, the United States decided to use the atomic bomb.

The atomic bomb helped to make an invasion of Japan unnecessary. On August 6, a B-29 called the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare, on the city of Hiroshima. More than 92,000 poeple were killed or ended up missing. Three days later, an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, which killed at least 40,000. Injuries from the two bombings were about equal to the deaths. Others would die later from radiation sickness. The Japanese realized that they were helpless if one atomic bomb could cause so much damage. On August 10, the Japanese government asked the Allies if uncondional surrender meant that Emperor Hirohito would have to give up his throne. The Allies replied that the Japanese people would decide his fate. On August 14, the Allies received a message from Japan accepting the surrender terms, and on September 2, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the Allies and Japan signed the surrender agreement. President Harry S. Truman proclaimed September 2 as V-J Day (Victory over Japan). Three years, eight months, and 22 days after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, World War II ended.

Representatives from 52 countries met in San Francisco in September 1951 to draw up a peace treaty with Japan. On September 8, diplomats from 49 of these countries signed the treaty. Only three countries — Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Union — opposed the terms of the pact and refused to sign. The treaty required Japan to give up its former possessions outside its four home islands. It also gave Japan the right to rearm itself for self-defense and trade agreements.

Japan came under Allied occupation within two weeks after its surrender. General Douglas MacArthur, as supreme commander for the Allied Powers, ruled Japan during the occupation. The United States officially ended its war with Japan on April 28, 1952. With the end of the occupation, Japan signed treaties with the major Allies, allowing their troops to remain in Japan.

Aftermath

World War II brought an end to the Depression everywhere. Industries had been ignited for the production of arms and resources to equip fighting forces.

"The man behind the man behind the gun" helped win World War II. People on the home front built weapons, produced food and supplies, and bought war bonds. Many historians believe that war production was the key to Allied victory. The Allies not only mobilized more men and women in their armed forces, but also outproduced the Axis in weapons and machinery.

Scientific inventions and discoveries also helped shorten the war. The United States organized its scientific resources in the Office of Scientific Research and Development. That government agency invented or improved such commodities as radar, rocket launchers, jet engines, amphibious assault boats, long-range navigational aids, devices for detecting submarines, and more. Scientists also made it possible to produce large quantities of penicillin to fight a wide range of diseases, as well as DDT to fight jungle diseases caused by insects.

The war solved some problems, but created many others. Germany had been the dominant power on the European continent, while Japan had held that role in Asia. Their defeat in World War II left open positions of leadership. The Soviet Union moved in quickly to replace Germany as the most powerful country in Europe and also aimed at taking Japan's place as the dominant power in Asia. The Communists under Mao Zedong defeated the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and took over mainland China by the fall of 1949. With China, France, and Great Britain devastated and financially exhausted by the war, the United States and the Soviet Union became the two major powers of the world.

The Allies were determined not to repeat the mistakes of World War I, in which Allies had failed to set up an organization to enforce the peace until after World War I ended. In June 1941, nine European governments-in-exile joined with Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries in signing the Inter-Allied Declaration, which called for nations to cooperate and work for lasting peace. In 1944, an idea emerged to create a postwar international organization. The United Nations was born on October 24, 1945. Its first sessions were held the following January in London.

World War II took the lives of more people than any other war in history. Eastern Europe and East Asia suffered the heaviest losses. Germany and the Soviet Union, and the nations that had been ground between them, may have lost as much as a tenth of their populations.

World War II was the most expensive war in history. It has been estimated that the cost of the war totaled between $1 and $2 trillion, and the property damage amounted to more than $239 billion. The United States spent about 10 times as much as it had spent in all its previous wars put together. The national debt rose from $42 billion in 1940 to $269 billion in 1946.

In 1944, President Roosevelt asked the War Department to devise a plan for bringing war criminals to justice. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau proposed executing prominent Nazi leaders at the time of capture and banishing others to far-off corners of the world, while German POWs would be forced to rebuild Europe. Secretary of War Henry Stimson saw things differently, and proposed trying Nazi leaders in court. Roosevelt chose the latter. In early October 1945, the four prosecuting nations — the United States, Great Britain, France, and Soviet Union — issued an indictment against 24 men charged with the systematic murder of millions of people, and planning and carrying out the war in Europe. Twelve trials were conducted, involving more than a hundred defendants. In addition to the individual indictments, three organizations were tried and found guilty. They were the SS, the Gestapo, and the Corps of the Political Leaders of the Nazi Party. The Nuremberg War Trials took place from 1945 to 1949.

The United States formally ended hostilities with Germany on October 19, 1951. West Germany would accept neither the division of Germany nor East Germany's frontiers. Thus, Germany was the only Axis power that did not become a member of the United Nations.

A cold war between the Soviets and the democracies ensued. In Asia, victory resulted in the takeover of China and Manchuria by the People's Republic of China, chaos in Southeast Asia, and a division of Korea, with the Soviets in the North and American's in the South. Another war already lay on the horizon.

Answer 2

1.If He win in Russia He will have Europe.That where He made mistake,He should just contrariety on England and France because He already won over there but that where He made mistake He try to get also Russia at the same time. 2.Don`t wanna talk about that.3 Because for Hitler there is nobody good enough on God`s eyes unless you are white with blue eyes(ARIEVAC)and that`s it for Him no discussing.

Answer 3

Q1. Hitler was really interested in gaining control of the oil in the USSR and destroying the communists, the white Russians fought with the Nazi's, I believe they made up a SS division.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in an attempt to destroy the entire Pacific fleet, they failed because the aircraft carriers were not in the harbor. They were hoping this would force the USA to negotiate.
Q2. Adolf Hitler wanted power and was a megalomaniac. Controlling Europe, Africa and beyond was simple a symptom of his sickness.
Q3. Hind sight is 20/20, Remember the Middle East
Q4. Same reason as Germany with Europe and Africa, Natural Resources.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Q.1. dont know

Q.2. Dont know

Q.3. Dont know

Q.4. Dont know

Answer 6

Japan wanted to be the controllers of all Asia.

Germany wanted to be the controllers of all Europe.

As you know, both ****hole countries were destroyed.

Answer 7

Hmmm, I don't know. Perhaps if someone knew these answers, much war could have been prevented.

Answer 8

Hitler decided to invade Russia for three reasons: one in furtherance of his philosophy stated in Mein Kampf that Germany needed "living space" in which to expand. Second, Naziism was the antithesis of communism and he felt compelled to root out communism in Europe. Third, Russia with its larger population and expanding military might could not be left to its own devices as it would eventually become too powerful to deal with, and so a preemptive strike was deemed necessary to preclude that.

As for Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, the United States was Japan's major competitor for hegemony in the eastern Pacific and was already seeking to hem in Japanese expansion with trade embargos that would have relegated Japan to being a second rate power at best, and compelled her to give up her territorial ambitions in China. Just as Germany saw Russia as a threat that it could not hope to match in the long run, Japan felt a preemptive strike on the Pearl Harbor might forestall a U.S. build-up.

Once Hitler had invaded Poland and triggered the declarations of war by France and Britain, he had little choice but to try to create a fortress Europe, seizing resources and denying landing areas for future invasions. Indeed Rommel's mission in North Africa was to deny Britain ports, air bases and staging areas for an attack on Europe's underbelly in the Mediterranean. Germany and Italy lacked the resources to conquer Africa, or, as it turned out, even to secure the whole of the Mediterranean coastline, but sending his troops inland would have hastened their defeat. The press toward the Middle East was for two reasons--oil which Germany lacked, and control of the Suez canal, to prevent Britain from exploiting its strategic advantage.

Finally, as to you last two questions, just as Germany sought to deny the British and later the Americans bases in the Mediterranean from which they might launch an invasion of Europe, Japan sought to secure such islands as might provide staging areas, ports and air bases for a U.S. counter-strike in the Pacific.

Answer 9

Hitler want to be another Napeolan, Hitler wanted to conquer the whole world. He had no use for Russian people he thought of them to be inferior beingings. Hitler also promise his people living space so as Germany population grew he could provide the land his people needed to have homes and land to grow food on, what better country to use for new German living space than Russia it's a big enough country. Ostensibly, the Germans feared that the Red Army was preparing to attack them, and their own assault was thus presented as a preemptive war. Readers of Hitler's Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") should, however, have expected an invasion of the Soviet Union. In his book, he made clear his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and that it should be found in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Russian and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German upper class. The German nazi-ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, who himself believed Slavs were Aryan, while preparing to implement these general ideas, suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following Reichskommissariates:

Ostland (The Baltic countries and Belarus)
Ukraine (Ukraine and adjacent territories),
Kaukasus (Southern Russia and the Caucasus area),
Moskau (Moscow metropolitan area and the rest of European Russia)
Turkestan (Central Asian republics and territories)

A Soviet propaganda poster depicting Aesop's story The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, alluding to Operation BarbarossaNazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum idea ("Drang nach Osten") for the benefit of future "Aryan" generations in the centuries to come.

The Führer anticipated additional benefits:

When the Soviet Union was defeated, the labor shortage in the German industry could be ended by the demobilization of many soldiers.
Ukraine would be a reliable source of cheap food.
Having the Soviet Union as a source of cheap slave labour would vastly improve Germany's geostrategic position.
Defeat of the Soviet Union would further isolate the British Empire
The German War Machine desperately needed access to Oil and only a push to the Soviet Baku Oilfields could achieve this objective.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had been signed shortly before the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. It was ostensibly a non-aggression pact in which secret protocols outlined an agreement between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union on the division of the border states between them. The pact surprised the world because of their mutual hostility and their opposed ideologies. As a result of this pact, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had reasonably strong diplomatic relations and were important trading partners. The Soviet Union supplied oil and raw materials to Germany, while Germany provided technology to the Soviet Union. Despite the pact, both sides remained strongly suspicious of each other's intentions, and as both sides began bumping up against each other in Eastern Europe it appeared that conflict was inevitable.

Hitler had long wanted to conquer western Russia in order to exploit its untermensch (subhuman) Slavic population. So he had signed the pact simply for (mutual) short-term convenience. In addition to the territorial ambitions of both Hitler and Stalin, the contrasting ideologies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made an eventual conflict between them likely.

Stalin's reputation contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their faith in success. During the late 1930s, Stalin had killed and imprisoned millions of people during the Great Purge, including large numbers of competent and experienced military officers and strategists, effectively leaving the Red Army weakened and leaderless. The Nazis often emphasized the brutality of the Soviet regime when targeting the Slavs with their propaganda.

Operation Barbarossa was largely the brainchild of Hitler himself. Some members of his military and diplomatic staff advised finishing off Great Britain before undertaking a second front against the Soviet Union, but for the most part his General staff agreed that an invasion would be necessary at some point. Hitler considered himself a political and military genius, and indeed at this point in the war he had achieved a series of lightning victories against what appeared to be insurmountable odds, often against the advice of Germany's military leadership. His brashness and willingness to take risks, combined with the discipline of his troops, had won him first the Rhineland, Austria (Anschluss) and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia with hardly a struggle, then Poland, Denmark and Norway with only slightly more trouble. Then he had brought about the rapid collapse of France by slashing through Luxembourg north of the Maginot Line, pocketing large numbers of Allied troops, and then south to the Swiss border. The northern pocket collapsed and its troops fell back on Dunkirk. The British were driven off French soil, but England remained secure because of its naval superiority and aerial parity. Unable to force Britain's capitulation - though vacillating toward an invasion - lacking sufficient naval assets and a strategic bomber force, Hitler was impatient to get on with his long desired invasion of the east. He was convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Soviet Union was knocked out of the war.

We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down
— Adolf Hitler
Hitler was overconfident due to his rapid success in Western Europe, as well as the Red Army's ineptitude in the Winter War against Finland 1939-40. He expected victory in a few months and did not prepare for a war lasting into the winter; his troops lacked adequate clothinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa#German_intentions
As for Japan they wanted to expand too. Japan as you know is a island nation they have few resources so the reason why they wanted to control the South East Asia part of the world was to get resources and promise to free the people's living in that region from English and Dutch Colonism since those two countries had expand their nations wealth because they took over a lot of those countries in South East Asia when their Explorers like Captain James Cook for England were looking for a new route to India and China so England and the rest of Europe could trade goods with those two countries. So come the Twentieth Century while Hitler's Germany advanced in Europe, Japan brought on the Greater East Asian War in the Pacific by its expansion in East Asia. A clique of aggressively militaristic officers and politicians gained control of the government during the 1930s. The goal of Japan's leaders was to create an empire that dominated the countries of East Asia and the sea lanes of the Western Pacific. The road to war between Japan and the United States began in the 1930s when differences over China drove the two nations apart. In 1931 Japan conquered Manchuria, which until then had been part of China. Japanese forces invaded China in July 1937, leading to a full-scale war which the Japanese military had neither expected nor desired. The Japanese war with China continued longer than the Japanese had expected, as Japan became mired in the vastness of China. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/world_war_2.htm As to why Japan bombed Pearl Harbor here is your answer for that question Background
Main article: Empire of Japan
For more information, see the article about Causes of World War II .
After the Meiji Restoration, Imperial Japan embarked on a period of rapid economic, political, and military expansion in an effort to achieve parity with the European and North American powers. The strategy for expansion included extending territorial and economic control to increase access to natural resources.

In executing this strategy, Japan embarked on a number of military adventures that brought it into conflict with neighboring countries. These included a war with China in 1894 in which Japan took control of Taiwan, and a war with Russia in 1904 by which Japan gained territory in and around China and the Korean peninsula. After WWI, the League of Nations awarded Japan custody of most Imperial German possessions and colonies in the Far East and Pacific waters. In 1931, Japan forcibly imposed a "puppet" state in Manchuria which they called Manchukuo.

From 1910 through the 1930's the country had been extensively militarized, having created a large and modern navy (the third largest navy in the world at the time) and army. In 1937, Japan began a large-scale invasion of mainland China, attacking from Manchuria and at several points along China's Pacific coast.

The League of Nations, the U.S., the UK, and the Netherlands who had territorial interests in Southeast Asia disapproved of the Japanese attacks on China, and responded with condemnation and diplomatic pressure. Japan left the League of Nations in protest. The U.S. upped the presssure on Japan to force withdraw by renouncing the 1911 U.S.-Japanese treaty of commerce an act which later permitted imposing embargoes. Japan continued its military campaign in China. In 1939 Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany, formally ending World War I hostilities, and declaring common interests. In 1940, Japan signed Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy to form the Axis Powers.

These Japanese actions caused the U.S. to place embargoes on scrap metal and gasoline and to close the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping. The situation continued to worsen, and in 1941 Japan moved into northern Indochina. The U.S. response was to freeze Japanese assets and initiate a complete oil embargo.[2] Oil was Japan's most crucial resource, as its own supplies were very limited and 80% of Japan's oil imports came from the U.S.[3]


Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was a significant ultranationalist thinker.Diplomatic negotiations climaxed with the Hull note of November 26, 1941, which Prime Minister Hideki Tojo described to his cabinet as an ultimatum. Japan had to chose between complying with the U.S. and UK demands -- thus backing down from its aggression in China and the surrounding areas, and continuing with its military adventure. Concerned about losing hard-earned status and prestige in the international community if Japan backed down ("loss of face") and the perceived threat to its national security posed by the Western Powers who controlled territory in the Pacific and/or East Asia, Imperial Japan under Emperor Hirohito decided to pursue the latter option and chose war with the United States and United Kingdom as a response to these embargoes and uncooperation sided with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and others as part of Axis Powers. [4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor For your question on Rommel I found some information on wikipedia Africa 1941-43

Erwin Rommel, 1941His campaign in Africa gave Rommel the nickname "The Desert Fox". Rommel spent most of 1941 building up his forces, the Italian component of which had suffered a string of defeats at the hands of British Commonwealth forces under Major General Richard O'Connor. An offensive pushed the Allied forces back out of Libya, but it stalled a relatively short way into Egypt, and the important port of Tobruk, although surrounded, was still held by Allied forces under the Australian General, Leslie Morshead. The Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Archibald Wavell made two unsuccessful attempts to relieve Tobruk (Operation Brevity and Operation Battleaxe).

Following the costly failure of Battleaxe, Wavell was relieved by Commander-in-Chief India, General Claude Auchinleck. Auchinleck launched a major offensive to relieve Tobruk (Operation Crusader) which eventually succeeded. During the confusion caused by the Crusader operation, Rommel and his staff ended up behind Allied lines several times. On one occasion he visited a New Zealand Army field hospital, which was still under Allied control. "[Rommel] inquired if anything was needed, promised the British [sic] medical supplies and drove off unhindered." (General Fritz Bayerlein, The Rommel Papers, chapter 8.)

Crusader was a defeat for Rommel. After several weeks of fighting Rommel ordered the withdrawal of all his forces from the area around Tobruk (December 7, 1941) and retreated towards El Agheila. The Allies followed, attempting to cut off the retreating troops as they had done in 1940 but Rommel launched a counter-attack on January 20, 1942 and mauled the Allied forces. The Afrika Korps retook Benghazi and the Allies pulled back to the Tobruk area and commenced building defensive positions.

On May 24, 1942 Rommel's army attacked. In a classic blitzkrieg, Rommel outflanked the Allies at Gazala, surrounded and reduced the strongpoint at Bir Hakeim and forced the Allies to quickly retreat, in the so-called "Gazala Gallop", to avoid being completely cut off. Tobruk, isolated and alone, was now all that stood between the Afrika Korps and Egypt. On 21 June 1942, after a swift, coordinated and fierce combined arms assault, the city surrendered along with its 33,000 defenders. Only at the fall of Singapore, earlier that year, had more British Commonwealth troops been captured. Hitler made Rommel a Field Marshal, and the Allied forces were comprehensively beaten. Within weeks they had been pushed back far into Egypt.


Rommel in Africa - Summer 1941Rommel's 21st Panzer Division was eventually stopped at the small railway town of El Alamein, just sixty miles from Alexandria.

With Allied forces from Malta interdicting his supplies at sea, and the massive distances they had to cover in the desert, Rommel could not hold the El Alamein position forever. Still, it took a large set piece battle, the Second Battle of El Alamein, to force his troops back.

In September he took sick leave in Italy and Germany but immediately returned when news of the battle became known. After the defeat at El Alamein, from where Rommel's forces managed to escape by using all the Italian transports, despite urgings from Hitler and Mussolini, Rommel's forces did not again stand and fight until they had entered Tunisia. Even then, their first battle was not against the British Eighth Army, but against the U.S. II Corps. Rommel inflicted a sharp reversal on the American forces at the Battle of Kasserine Pass.

Turning once again to face the British Commonwealth forces in the old French border defences of the Mareth Line, Rommel could only delay the inevitable. Ultra codebreaking efforts were a major factor that led to the defeat of his forces as they helped to enable British intelligence to predict when and where to expect Rommel's supply shipments. Rommel's last offensive in North Africa occurred on March 6th 1943, when he attacked Montgomery's 8th Army at the Battle of Medenine with three panzer divisions (10th, 15th and 21st). Decoded Ultra intercepts allowed Montgomery to deploy large numbers of anti-tank guns in the path of the offensive. After losing 52 tanks, Rommel was forced to call off the assault. He left Africa after falling ill, and the men of his former command eventually became prisoners of war at the Axis capitulation in Tunisia on 12 May 1943.

Some historians contrast Rommel's withdrawal of his army back to Tunisia against Hitler's dreams of much greater success than even his capture of Tobruk (in sharp contrast to the fate suffered by the German 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad under the command of Friedrich Paulus which stood its ground and was annihilated).

Some sources state that during this period, there was a failed Allied attempt to capture Rommel from his headquarters, 250 miles behind enemy lines.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel#Africa_1941-43 I hope I answered your question with examples and with my own words. But really I think you need to take a Twenty Century History Class or go on line and read up about this information yourself. It is very complicated why World War 2 broke out and why. So really if you need to know the root causes as to why Hitler came into power. You must go back to World War 1. History is a very interesting subject and the internet will provide you with all your answer. Just google Hitler and why he invaded Russia on to the search field and click and you get a lot of web sites on this subject.