In your spiral create 8 graphic organizers over the material provided. The graphic organizers may only have 3 spokes; therefore you will need to summarize/combine/rewrite the information. They may look like these examples:
2.1 A: The U.S. Alliance with Great Britain and the Soviet Union The alliance among the "Big Three" was uneasy because of ideological differences, but it was created out of necessity to win the war. The Allies decided on a strategy to defeat Hitler first before turning toward Japan. Stalin wanted the Allies to take the pressure off the Soviet Union by launching a direct attack on the main force of German troops in western Europe. The United States and Great Britain decided to attack through North Africa and then Italy instead. On the Eastern Front, the war took a terrible toll on the Soviet population. 2.1 B: The Allied Invasion of Northwestern Europe The Allies planned an amphibious attack on the Normandy coast in France. The invasion was code named Operation Overlord and came to be known as D-Day, which stands for the designated day of invasion. Two million soldiers were stationed in Great Britain for the attack, as well as thousands of airplanes, ships, and tanks. D-Day began on June 6, 1944, with troops pouring onto the beaches, aircraft dropping bombs from above, and ships firing ammunition from the sea. Allied troops faced heavy resistance from German troops occupying the high ground above the beaches, and the first waves of invaders experienced high casualty rates. By fall 1944, the Allies had defeated the Germans at the coast, pushed inland, and liberated Paris and Belgium.
2.1C: The Battle of the Bulge By December 1944 Hitler's forces were squeezed between the Soviet Red Army in the east and the British and American troops in the west. Allied bombers rained bombs on German cities, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed in Dresden and Berlin. Hitler launched a surprise offensive to avoid defeat, marching into a weak point in the Allied lines in the Ardennes region in Belgium. Outnumbered American troops held off the Germans for eight days in the bitter cold before reinforcements arrived. The German offensive created a huge bulge in the Allied lines before reinforcements arrived and German troops were pushed back. By March 1945 the Allies pushed across the bridge at Remagen over the Rhine River and into Germany. 2.1 D: The Allied Victory in Europe After the Battle of the Bulge, Allied forces closed in on Berlin from the east and the west. Hitler delayed sending reinforcements to the Eastern Front until it was too late to stop the Soviet Red Army. The Allies met at Yalta to discuss the terms of a German surrender. Eisenhower stopped the Allied advance from the west 50 miles from Berlin, ensuring the city would end up under Soviet control. On April 25, 1945, the American and British troops met the Soviet troops at the Elbe River and congratulated one another on a hard-fought victory. Recognizing certain defeat, Hitler committed suicide, and his replacement Karl Donitz surrendered to the Allied forces on May 7, 1945. One day after the surrender, the Allies celebrated V-E Day Victory in Europe Day. The joy over the defeat of Germany was tempered by horror of the discovery of the Nazi death camps.
2.1E: U.S. Strategy in the Pacific War Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941 launched the Pacific War. Thousands of Americans died in the Bataan Death March after the American stronghold in the Philippines fell. The U.S. military and political leadership adopted an "island hopping" strategy to defeat the Japanese. In April 1942, the U.S. Air Force bombed key Japanese cities in the Doolittle Raid. 2.1 F: The Turning Point of the Pacific War The key to winning the Pacific War was establishing control over the skies and waters of the expansive Pacific. The first major battle between the American and Japanese fleets, the Battle of the Coral Sea, was fought by aircraft carriers, fighters, and bombers in May 1942. U.S. intelligence decoded a plan to attack the island of Midway, and subsequently forced the Japanese to retreat. The Battle of Midway, in June 1942, marked the turning point in the war, giving the United States the upper hand.
2.1 G: The Battle of Iwo Jima In 1943 and 1944, the United States captured Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and the Marshall and Marianas Islands in the Central and South Pacific. U.S. soldiers attacking Japanese-held islands faced many dangers, including monsoons, malaria, oppressive heat, earthquakes, and jungle conditions. From February to March 1945, American troops fought to take over the island of Iwo Jima. Fighting on Iwo Jima was brutal and continuous, and both sides experienced heavy casualties. The American victory at Iwo Jima and then at Okinawa placed the Americans in a strong position to launch air attacks on Japan. 2.1 H: The End of World War II After the American capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the U.S. Air Force bombed Japan relentlessly. One firebombing of Japan in March 1945 killed more than 80,000 Japanese. The U.S. Navy established a successful blockade of Japan, cutting off the Japanese supply lines. The Japanese used suicide missions called kamikaze to counteract American attacks. For nearly four years American scientists had worked feverishly to construct an atomic bomb, which was successfully tested in July 1945. Two separate bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, respectively. Over 170,000 people were killed in the bombing, and the Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945. World War II was a costly war: 300,000 American soldiers were killed and, worldwide, as many as 50 million lives were lost.