Works Cited

Ellis, Claire. "Exploring the Enigma." Plus.maths.org. University of Cambridge. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://plus.maths.org/content/exploring-enigma>.

Hickman, Kennedy. "Georgy Zhukov - World War II Georgy Zhukov Biography." Military History - Warfare through the Ages - Battles and Conflicts - Weapons of War - Military Leaders in History. About.com. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/1900s/p/zhukov.htm>.

Hickman, Kennedy. "Isoroku Yamamoto - Japanese World War II Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto." Military History - Warfare through the Ages - Battles and Conflicts - Weapons of War - Military Leaders in History. About.com. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/naval/p/Yamamoto.htm>.

Mitchell, Bard. "Isoroku Yamamoto." Jewish Virtual Library - Homepage. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Yamamoto.html>.

Rijmenants, Dirk. "Enigma Machine." Telenet Service. 2004. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/enigma.htm>.

Simkin, John. "Chiang Kai-shek." Spartacus Educational. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWchaing.htm>.

Simkin, John. "Erwin Rommel." Spartacus Educational. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERrommel.htm>.

Simkin, John. "Vyacheslav Molotov : Biography." Spartacus Educational. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSmolotov.htm>.

Trueman, Chris. "Chiang Kai." History Learning Site. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/chiang_kai.htm>.

Trueman, Chris. "Erwin Rommel." History Learning Site. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/erwin_rommel.htm>.

Trueman, Chris. "Georgy Zhukov." History Learning Site. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/georgy_zhukov.htm>.

"Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/388488/Vyacheslav-Mikhaylovich-Molotov>.

Georgy Zhukov

Georgy Zhukov was the most successful Russian general in World War II and he was known as the ‘man who did not lose a battle.’ He became a troop commander and he was later put in charge of the 1^st Cavalry Army during the Russian Civil War. He also joined the Communist Party. He had his first victorious battle in 1939 as he was asked to lead an attack against the Japanese in Mongolia. He was awarded with the title: Hero of the Soviet Union for the victory. Stalin then asked him to defend Moscow in 1941. His army did a wonderful job and not only defended Moscow but also stated a huge counterattack on the German army. He also gave Germany their biggest lost in Germany history up until that time in 1942 at Stalingrad. Zhukov’s army then captured Berlin in 1945 and shortly after World War II ended. Stalin was very jealous of all Zhukov’s popularity and removed him from the post of the supreme military commander of the Soviet Occupation Zone. After Stalin died he was promoted to Deputy Defense Minister. He was removed from the ministry by Nikita Khrushchev in 1957. He was removed because he was accused of putting the military before the party. He undertook programs to improve armed forces. This lead to a reduction in the role of the party’s political advisers and party’s control of the army.

Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek: He took part in the overthrowing of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Afterward he then joined the Chinese Nationalist Party, which was founded by Sun Yat-sen. Sun Yat-sen supported Chiang and made him commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy in Canton in 1924. When Sun Yat-sen died, Chiang became leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party. In 1926, he led the victorious Northern Expedition with the Nationalist army into several cities. A year later, he initiated the long civil war between the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Communist. A year after that he became head of the Nationalist government. The Japanese evaded China in 1931. It was because Chiang was not as concerned with the Japanese as he was his own civil war, that he was kidnapped in 1936. The people that kidnapped him wanted him to end the civil war with Communists and use the army to fight the Japanese. Then Japanese attacked China in 1937 and the civil war between the Nationalist and Communists died down. Chiang was forced to move his capital to Chongquig after the Japanese took over Nanjing and Hankou. Then when World War II started China joined the Allied Powers. They joined the Allied Powers after the United States joined World War II against Japan. Chiang’s power in China weakened and he went to Cairo, Egypt to meet the US President Franklin Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Civil war against the Communist and the Nationalist erupted again in 1946. The result was the Communist won and established the People’s Republic of China in 1949.  Chiang then fled to Taiwan and the rest of the Nationalist came with him. He made a government there that he led for 25 years. Many countries recognized this as the legitimate government of China. Since people thought that Taiwan controlled China’s seat in the United Nations until Chiang died. 

Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill

 

Isoroku Yamamoto

Isoroku Yamamoto is a well known Japanese naval commander during WWII. He went to the Japanese Naval War College from 1919 to 1921 at Harvard University. For a while, in between 1926 and 1928, he was a Naval Attaché for the United States. He got a negative attitude for the American Navy while he was in it. He’s great skill in naval aviation made him want to improve Japan’s navy. But he knew that the American Navy had a lot of power, especially in the Pacific Ocean. Since the United States was the only real threat to Japanese expansion in the Pacific Ocean, Yamamoto was ordered to prepare a attack. The attack happened on December 7^th, 1941. Yamamoto attacked Pearl Harbor because he knew that that was America’s naval base. He wanted a “stunning but quick knock-out blow” He did not get this quick knock-out blow though because all the aircraft carriers based in Pearl Harbor were out at sea. He did sink four battleships and damaged another four, and started World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor did give the Japanese six months to expand their territory while America recuperated from the blow. Then in 1942, Japan had a devastating loss that the navy could not recover from. It was called the Battle of Midway. Then in 1943, Yamamoto was going to go to the Solomon Islands. America decoded the Japanese message that told them the exact time and locations of where Yamamoto would be.  The plan to kill Yamamoto was called ‘Operation Vengeance.’ It was successful and Yamamoto was killed. He got the Oder of the Chrysanthemum Award and Nazi Germany awarded him the Knight’s Cross Award, he was the only foreigner to receive this award. Yamamoto really did change history with his attack on Pearl Harbor, it is still remembered today, and so is he. 

Attack on Pearl Harbor

 

Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov was a member and an organizer of the Bolshevik party. He was arrested twice for his revolutionary activities. The Bolsheviks then got more power and he became a member and secretary of the Central Committee in 1921. After the death of Lenin in 1924, Molotov supported Stalin. Stalin promoted him to full membership in the Politburo in 1926. He then became the prime minister of the Soviet Union in 1930-41. He was well known for sentencing thousands of people to exile or death. He believed that “reprisals were necessary for overcoming opponents of Soviet power.” Stalin then picked Molotov to replace Maksim Litvinov as the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs. He also negotiated the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with Nazi Germany. He had been told by Stalin to adjust the relationship between Germany and the Soviet Union. Then Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. He told the people of the Soviet Union “The enemy will be defeated. The victory will be ours.”  He signed a treaty with English Ambassador, Richard Cripps that joined their actions in the war against Germany. During World War II, Molotov made special bottles that contained ignition agents that were used against tank attacks. They were named “Molotov’s cocktail.” During, and after the war, Molotov was the Soviet spokesman at the Allied Conferences. They were at Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam, and San Francisco, which created the United Nations. He was foreign minister in 1953 but he was dismissed because of his disagreements with Nikita Khrushchev. He joined the “antiparty group” that tired but did not succeed in getting rid of Khrushchev in 1957. He lost all his high party and state offices because of that. He was then appointed ambassador of Mongolia and left the Soviet Union. When he returned to Moscow he was expelled from the Communist Party after “engaging in more criticisms of Khrushchev in 1962. He died at age 96 on November 7^th, 1986.

Enigma Codes

Enigma Codes is a machine that encrypts and decodes messages. It is called the Enigma Cipher Machine. It was invented by two Dutch naval officers in 1915 and Arthur Scherbius patented the machine in 1918 and began selling it commercially. It was very important to the Germans in WWII because they used the machine to encrypt their messages. They had an adapted military version for communications and were heavily relied on. It showed the importance of cryptography. There were hand ciphers before, but this was the first complex and rotor using cipher machine.  Then during WWII when Germany sent secret codes to the Allies, code breakers at Bletchley Park in Britain cracked the messages. In the big picture, after the war, the United States decided to use the Enigma machine. They began to improve them and make them more complicated.  Some of the codes and mathematical equations are used in our computers today.

Erwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel was appointed instructor at the Infantry School in Dreseden in 1929. In October 1935 he became a lieutenant colonel and began teaching at the Postdam War Academy. In 1937 his lectures were published in a book on infantry tactics. Even today, his book is required reading for tank commanders. This book caught the attention of Adolf Hitler. Rommel then became commander of Hitler’s headquarter staff in Austria and Czechoslovakia and a year later, in Poland. Pretty soon, he became one of Hitler’s favorite men. By 1940 he was the commander of the 7^th Panzer Division that invaded France. He was then promoted to general and then appointed commander of the Afrika Corps in 1941 by Hitler. Rommel did a lot of work in North Africa and that is what he is most remembered for. He drove the British 8^th Army out of Libya, but he was defeated at El Alamein in Egypt. Then, in 1944 he was the commander of the defenses of the Atlantic Wall. He defense was at France’s channel coast and the purpose was to ensure that Western Europe was secure against all possible allied invasions. He then joined a conspiracy against Hitler because he believed that Germany was on the verge of defeat and he wanted Hitler to end the war. Rommel is one of the most remembered men of WWII and well known for his victories in North Africa.