Deck 26: World War II 1939-1945

Question 1

Many scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb for the United States:

A) were hired by the joint authority of the United States, England, and the Soviet Union.
B) made it known that they felt the project should not be kept secret.
C) insisted that no one but them be given access to the research building.
D) had escaped from Fascist and Nazi aggression in Europe.

Answer 1

had escaped from Fascist and Nazi aggression in Europe.

Question 2

According to Gallup polls throughout the 1930s, 70 percent of Americans:

A) wanted military intervention only on behalf of England.
B) expressed that becoming involved in another world war would be a mistake.
C) felt that fascism did not present a serious threat to European security.
D) supported economic aid and military intervention to stop fascist aggression.

Answer 2

expressed that becoming involved in another world war would be a mistake.

Question 3

The earliest fascist aggression took place when:

A) Hitler created death camps in Eastern Europe.
B) Japan launched a brutal invasion of China.
C) Italy attacked and conquered Ethiopia.
D) the German air force launched raids on Great Britain.

Answer 3

Japan launched a brutal invasion of China.

Question 4

Which is the correct trio of Axis Powers in World War II?

A) Soviet Union, Germany, Italy
B) Germany, Japan, Italy
C) Germany, Italy, France
D) Soviet Union, Japan, Germany

Question 5

By 1939, Nazi concentration camps held people who were mostly:

A) Eastern Europeans.
B) Allied soldiers.
C) Polish Jews.
D) socialists, homosexuals, and beggars.

Question 6

Germany's invasion of _________ on September 1, 1939 marked the start of World War II.

A) Denmark
B) Britain
C) France
D) Poland

Question 7

By the end of 1940, Germany had conquered all of the following countries, EXCEPT:

A) Sweden.
B) Norway.
C) Yugoslavia.
D) Greece.

Question 8

Nazi aggression was finally stalled in 1940 and early 1941 when:

A) President Roosevelt secretly sent American pilots to Europe.
B) England steadfastly resisted the Nazis in the Battle of Britain.
C) a British blockade of Germany cut off fascist supply lines.
D) economic boycotts damaged the German war effort.

Question 9

American public opinion polls in 1938-1940 showed all of the following beliefs EXCEPT:

A) the majority of Americans did not care if either the Allied or Axis powers prevailed.
B) the American people believed the nation should fight only if directly attacked.
C) more than 80 percent of Americans supported continued restrictions on immigration.
D) most Americans believed that the nation had been wrong to enter World War I.

Question 10

Which of the following countries was allied with the Axis in 1941?

A) Greece
B) Hungary
C) Spain
D) Denmark

Question 11

FDR's "lend-lease" program allowed:

A) states to earn block grants from the federal government.
B) the United States to sell military supplies to the Axis Powers.
C) Britain to borrow military equipment from the United States.
D) minorities to receive equal treatment in New Deal programs.

Question 12

Which American hero was ardently isolationist in his views regarding the war in Europe?

A) Douglas MacArthur
B) Theodore Roosevelt
C) Charles Lindbergh
D) Babe Ruth

Question 13

The Atlantic Charter of 1941:

A) created further distance between the United States and European involvement.
B) provided a political framework for the possibility of American involvement.
C) did not express American opposition to territorial change by conquest.
D) emphasized the defeat of imperial Japan as the first priority.

Question 14

In the months leading up to Pearl Harbor:

A) relations between the United States and Japan appeared to be getting better.
B) Germany withdrew its troops from the Soviet Union.
C) Japan signed a non-aggression pact with China.
D) FDR froze Japanese assets and increased U.S. naval presence in the Pacific.

Question 15

After Japan invaded ______________, Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States and stopped petroleum shipments to Japan.

A) China
B) Guam
C) French Indochina
D) the Philippines

Question 16

Which statement about Pearl Harbor is true?

A) The attack left the United States with no naval carriers in the Pacific.
B) Japan destroyed all of the oil storage tanks at Pearl Harbor.
C) More than 2,000 Americans were killed in the surprise Japanese attack.
D) Even after the attack, many congressmen voted against a declaration of war.

Question 17

A turning point on the Eastern Front came when:

A) the Americans defeated the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway.
B) Allied forces defeated the Germans at El Alamein.
C) the Soviet Union forced a German surrender after the Battle of Stalingrad.
D) FDR sent 2 million troops to the aid of the battered Soviet Union.

Question 18

Which of the following areas was most insulated from the fighting in World War II?

A) North Africa
B) North America
C) East Asia
D) southern Europe

Question 19

A turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic came when:

A) German manufacturers surprisingly stopped producing U-boats.
B) new sonar systems improved the tracking of German U-boats.
C) Admiral Yamomoto realized his forces were outnumbered.
D) the Soviet Union sent naval reinforcements.

Question 20

The first check to Japanese expansion came at the Battle of the Coral Sea when:

A) British reinforcements relieved a battered U.S. navy.
B) U.S. aircraft carriers halted a Japanese advance toward Australia.
C) the Japanese were forced to surrender the island fortress of Corregidor.
D) the alliance of the Axis Powers dissolved.

Question 21

Which statement about American support for World War II is true?

A) Officials were surprised that not many men enlisted after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
B) For the first time in U.S. military history, racial equality existed in the army.
C) The support for the war unified Americans across regional, national, and class divisions.
D) Women played no significant role in the Allies' victory.

Question 22

The Office of Price Administration fought inflation by:

A) intentionally decreasing farm incomes.
B) implementing price controls and rationing.
C) paying off the entire national debt.
D) ordering lower wages for war industry workers.

Question 23

All of the following statements about war production are true EXCEPT:

A) American workers produced a staggering 40 percent of all war materials in the world.
B) the Great Depression was ended because of the upturn in the wartime economy.
C) existing factories were very effective at retooling for producing war materials.
D) the poorest quarter of Americans was excluded from wartime industries.

Question 24

Italian-American scientist Enrico Fermi led the project that:

A) developed the atomic bomb for the United States.
B) created radar bombing for American planes.
C) discovered that sonar could be used to track German U-boats.
D) revolutionized blood transfusion procedures.

Question 25

The Manhattan Project was the code name for:

A) the D-Day invasion.
B) rationing programs in the United States.
C) the project to develop the atomic bomb.
D) the American attack at Iwo Jima.

Question 26

What prompted J. Robert Oppenheimer to say, "Now I am become death"?

A) viewing the grim remains of the Battle of Saipan
B) observing the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz
C) seeing a nuclear fission bomb tested for the first time
D) watching the Battle of Stalingrad from a barn in the countryside

Question 27

Which statement about Native Americans in World War II is true?

A) The government did very little to assimilate Indians into the war effort.
B) The average cash income of Indians experienced a decrease during the war.
C) They often served as effective code-talkers by using Native American languages.
D) There was an increase in the number of Native Americans who lived in urban areas.

Question 28

Harriet Arnow's novel, The Dollmaker, provided a sensitive portrayal of:

A) German Jews trying to escape the Holocaust.
B) challenges facing women who worked in war factories.
C) Mexican immigrants seeking social acceptance as they fought heroically in battle.
D) an American hero at the Battle of Midway.

Question 29

All of the following statements about women workers on the home front are true EXCEPT:

A) women were encouraged to work by poster images of strong, handsome women.
B) women played vital roles in the shipyards and in the aircraft industry.
C) employment of women increased enormously during the war years.
D) the percentage of women working in manufacturing jobs did not increase.

Question 30

All of the following statements about American propaganda during the war are true EXCEPT:

A) the government was successful at soliciting participation in scrap drives.
B) the Germans were uniformly portrayed as being more inherently evil than the Japanese.
C) fictional radio characters such as Hop Harrigan fought the Axis Powers in their shows.
D) the most successful war movies dramatized the courage of the Allies.

Question 31

FDR's issuance of Executive Order 8802:

A) allowed women to join the Army-Air Corps.
B) required participation in scrap drives and victory gardens.
C) gave approval for the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan.
D) banned racial discrimination in employment for defense industries.

Question 32

During World War II, riots in Harlem and Detroit revealed that:

A) the Communist Party had a strong foundation in urban areas.
B) antiwar sentiment was on the rise as the war continued.
C) labor unions were not following FDR's no-strike appeals.
D) racial divisiveness was still a social problem in America.

Question 33

Who replaced Henry Wallace as FDR's running mate in 1944?

A) John Kennedy
B) Harry Truman
C) Harry Hopkins
D) Dwight Eisenhower

Question 34

Meetings of Allied leaders at Casablanca and Tehran revealed that:

A) China would not continue to aid the Allies' cause.
B) Japan was on the verge of surrender.
C) the Soviet Union was no longer experiencing significant casualties.
D) the Allies possessed differing views of the world after the war.

Question 35

Of the three Allied leaders, which was closest to the idealism of Woodrow Wilson?

A) Roosevelt
B) Stalin
C) Churchill
D) All three could be considered Wilsonians.

Question 36

After the fall of Mussolini:

A) the Axis Powers withdrew all of their troops from central Europe.
B) the British shifted their focus back to North Africa.
C) bitter fighting for the control of Italy took place between the Allies and Germany.
D) George Patton was able to invade eastern France.

Question 37

"Operation OVERLORD" was the code name for the:

A) re-election strategy of FDR.
B) project to build the atomic bomb.
C) D-Day invasion.
D) Soviet counterattack at Stalingrad.

Question 38

Britain and the United States began their European offensive against Germany by invading:

A) France.
B) Italy.
C) Norway.
D) the Netherlands.

Question 39

The most important result of the fighting after the Allied landing at Normandy was:

A) the toppling of Mussolini's government in Italy.
B) the retreat of the Germans out of France.
C) the emergence of Harry Truman's skills as a presidential leader.
D) it coincided with the Americans' victory at Kasserine Pass.

Question 40

The purpose of the D-Day invasion was to:

A) knock Italy out of the war.
B) liberate France from German control.
C) topple the government of Emperor Hirohito.
D) establish military ports in North Africa.

Question 41

An important turning point in the bombing raids of Germany occurred when:

A) the Germans ran out of anti-aircraft ammunition.
B) America decided to stop the practice of daylight bombing.
C) Hitler committed suicide in late 1943.
D) P-51 Mustangs began to successfully escort American bombers in relative safety.

Question 42

Which American plane was known as the "Flying Fortress"?

A) the Liberator
B) the P-51 Mustang
C) the Spitfire
D) the B-17

Question 43

____________ had the highest number of total dead in World War II.

A) The Soviet Union
B) China
C) Germany
D) Japan

Question 44

All of the following statements about the bomb raids of Germany are true EXCEPT:

A) allied bombing raids on factories began to cripple the German economy.
B) the American airmen took off in heavily armed planes from bases in Britain.
C) the Allies bombed Dresden because it was the most important industrial center of Germany.
D) daylight bombing improved the efficiency of bombing raids on factories.

Question 45

Tens of thousands of German civilians were killed in the "terror raid" fire bombing of:

A) Munich.
B) Berlin.
C) Dresden.
D) Cologne.

Question 46

As the Allies began to defeat the Germans from the east and the west:

A) Japan considered a sudden surrender to Great Britain.
B) Mussolini signed an alliance treaty with the United States.
C) they began to uncover the horrors of Nazi death camps.
D) antiwar protesters began to march on Washington.

Question 47

Which statement about the Holocaust is NOT true?

A) Jews and Poles were the only people killed in Nazi death camps.
B) Soviet troops came upon camps in which millions of Jews had been killed.
C) As Allied troops liberated conquered areas, they could scarcely believe the horrors.
D) European Jews suffered the most deaths in Nazi death camps.

Question 48

The American strategy in the Pacific has often been called:

A) blitzkrieg.
B) beach combing.
C) island hopping.
D) lightning war.

Question 49

The bitter intensity of the war in the Pacific was magnified by:

A) Japan's lack of any fighter planes.
B) racial hatred and cultural differences between both sides.
C) the defeat of the Americans at Leyte Gulf.
D) the Americans' inability to cut off supplies to Japan.

Question 50

In the year before the dropping of the atomic bomb:

A) the Japanese had won key battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
B) the American Army-Air Force had begun to falter in battle.
C) fighting between the Japanese and the Americans had slowed in intensity.
D) the American Army-Air Force had carried out destructive fire bombings of Japan.

Question 51

The 1945 American bombing of _________ was likely the largest mass killing of all time.

A) Hiroshima
B) Nagasaki
C) Dresden
D) Tokyo

Question 52

At the Yalta Conference:

A) Harry Truman had to replace the ailing Franklin Roosevelt.
B) the Soviet Union asserted control of land it already controlled.
C) Stalin refused to join the newly created United Nations.
D) the Allies did not address the designation of occupation zones in war-torn Europe.

Question 53

In the Potsdam Declaration of 1945, the United States attempted to:

A) demilitarize the Soviet Union.
B) withdraw all of its troops from Western Europe.
C) inform Japan about the United States' nuclear capabilities.
D) open the door for a Japanese surrender.

Question 54

All of the following statements about Japan in the last year of the war are true except:

A) suicidal kamikaze pilots exhibited the desperate stance of Japanese strategy.
B) Japanese forces retreated from Okinawa in an effort to save lives.
C) fire bombings crippled Japan's economy and war production.
D) Japanese officials greeted the Potsdam Declaration with caution and disinterest.

Question 55

Japan surrendered to the United States:

A) the day after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
B) because they feared the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in the Pacific.
C) as a result of the destructive fire bombings of Tokyo.
D) after the United States dropped a second atomic bomb.

Question 56

Which of the following was the LEAST significant reason why the Allies won World War II?

A) military preparedness before the war
B) economic capacity
C) advances in technology
D) military skill of generals and war planners

Question 57

A common misperception of World War II is that:

A) the American people were not unified during the war.
B) the victory of the Allies was certain from the time America entered the war.
C) the economic depression of the 1930s continued throughout the war.
D) the Allies were lucky to win the war in the Pacific.

Question 58

What was different about America after World War II when compared to 1940?

A) The country's economy had experienced a severe downturn by 1945.
B) Differences between ethnic and religious groups were not as great in magnitude.
C) The year 1945 marked the beginning of a long period of good relations with the Soviet Union.
D) The end of World War II left the United States with a very small army and navy.

Question 59

Which event happened last?

A) The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.
B) Franklin Roosevelt is elected to a third term.
C) The Germans invade Poland.
D) Mussolini is overthrown and killed in Italy.

Question 60

What is the correct order of events?

A) Japan attacks China, America enters the war, D-Day invasion
B) D-Day invasion, Japan attacks China, America enters the war
C) America enters the war, D-Day invasion, Japan attacks China
D) D-Day invasion, America enters the war, Japan attacks China

Question 61

Which headline would have appeared in 1945?

A) "Axis Powers Sign Tripartite Pact of Aggression"
B) "Americans Stop Japanese Advance at Midway"
C) "Race Riot Plagues Detroit"
D) "Nation Stunned as It Mourns Loss of FDR"

Question 62

The last military action of World War II was:

A) the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
B) the Allied capture of Berlin.
C) the Battle of Iwo Jima.
D) the Battle of the Bulge.

Question 63

Which event happened in the 1930s?

A) Germany invades the Soviet Union
B) The number of women workers in America increases dramatically
C) Nye Commission investigates arms trade
D) Allied forces invade Normandy

Question 64

Which event did NOT happen in 1939?

A) German-Soviet non-aggression pact
B) Battle of Britain
C) Germany invades Poland
D) France declares war on Germany

Question 65

Which event happened in 1941?

A) American and British forces invade Italy
B) Japan invades China
C) Germany invades France
D) Germany invades the Soviet Union

Question 66

Define and describe examples of three of the following terms: blitzkrieg, island hopping, daylight bombing, fire bombing.

Question 67

What actions illustrated Japanese, German, and Italian aggression in the 1930s?

Question 68

In what ways was FDR preparing for war before the invasion of Pearl Harbor?

Question 69

What evidence reveals the vital role that American manufacturing played in the victory of the Allies?

Question 70

Describe American policy regarding the war in the period from 1935 to December 7-8, 1941.

Question 71

How did American unity provide a foundation for success in World War II? Describe examples of Americans
on the home front that illustrate the importance of that unity.

Question 72

What factors combined to produce the defeat of Germany? Be sure to explain the roles of the Soviet Union, the
bombing campaigns, and the D-Day invasion in the victory of the Allies.

Question 73

Respond to this statement: "American entry into World War II emerged as a vital factor in the defeat of the Axis
powers."

Question 74

What evidence reveals the brutal nature of the war in the Pacific? What factors contributed to President
Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb? Of those factors, which one do you think was most influential in
his mind?

Question 75

Analyze the wartime experiences of three of the following groups: women, African Americans, Mexican
Americans and Japanese Americans, and Native Americans. Did these experiences help or hinder progress toward equality in America?

Question 76

Respond to the following statement: "FDR displayed effective leadership and the ability to unite Americans in
the national effort to win World War II."