雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界歷史87 對抗獨裁者

87
Fighting the Dictators
對抗獨裁者

     THE story of the biggest war that ever was cannot be told all in one chapter.
     So this chapter is about World War II, too.
     After France was taken, only the British Empire was left unconquered of all those countries that Germany had attacked. Even after the Battle of Britain, no one was sure that the Nazis would not try to invade England. But just keeping the Germans out of England would not win the war. No one believed that the English by themselves could beat the Germans. That is, no one believed it except the English. They refused to give up and they kept fight on trying to beat the most powerful, the best trained, and best equipped army in the world.
     Other parts of the British Empire sent soldiers to help England. But these other countries (Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India) were far away across seas in which German submarines hunted for ships to torpedo.
     Mussolini had brought Italy into the war on the side of Germany. Japan was burning, killing, and bombing in China, and Japan was friendly to Germany.
     No country could be sure it would be safe from attack. Who would be next on the list?
     Even the United States, three thousand miles across the ocean from Europe, felt its defenses should be strengthened. The very small American army was made into a very large army and American factories were put to work making tanks and airplanes and other war supplies. New ships began to be built for the navy. A large modern army, however, cannot be raised and trained and equipped in just a few days. It takes not a few days, nor months, but years. Warships take even longer than an army. Luckily for us the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, led the country to prepare itself for war when he did, for just about a year later we were attacked. Even then we weren't ready. But that comes later in the story.
     Now, while the Germans were still busy setting up their rule in France and Denmark and Norway and trying to subdue England with their airplanes, Italy tried to capture Greece and Egypt. But the Italians were not as good fighters as the Germans. A brave little Greek army held off the Italians there while an English general in North Africa, using soldiers from all parts of the British Empire, beat two Italian armies that had five times as many soldiers as he had. This freed Ethiopia from the Italians.
     But then the Germans sent an army that conquered Greece in three weeks. They sent an army also to North Africa, which fought the British there for the next three years.
     Suddenly Hitler attacked Russia. Now, you might think this was a foolish thing for Hitler to do. Russia was a huge country with a large army. Even Napoleon had been unable to take Russia. But Hitler knew that if he conquered Russia, Germany would gain great quantities of oil, wheat, lumber, and minerals. Besides, he thought Russia might attack Germany, for Russia had been building up a big army ever since the Nazis had started their conquests. Hitler had by now brought fifteen European countries under Nazi rule and his armies had never been beaten, though his air force had not been able to make England surrender.
     Into Russia rushed the Nazis. They hoped to destroy the Russian armies quickly. Far into Russia the Nazis fought, but the Russian armies, though driven back, were not destroyed. Finally the Nazis reached Moscow and attacked the city on three sides at once. Hitler announced that the battle of Moscow would be the death blow of the Russian armies. But he spoke too soon. The Russians held Moscow for weeks against Germans, who were attacking with thousands of tanks and airplanes. Russian soldiers and the civilians of the city fought side by side to defend it. Finally the Russians pushed back the German army. Moscow was saved.
     However, keeping the Germans from taking Moscow would not win the war, just as keeping them out of England wouldn't win the war. Germany and Italy still held almost all of Europe.
     Then just as the Russians were driving back the Nazis from Moscow, Japan struck. Japanese airplanes without warning bombed the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. This was on December 7, 1941. All the American warships there were sunk or damaged and more than two thousand Americans were killed. The next day Britain and the United States declared war on Japan. Four days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
     The United States was still not ready to fight both Germany and Japan at the same time. Our new armies were not yet trained, and a new fleet was not yet ready to take the place of the ships bombed at Pearl Harbor. It was lucky that Russia was fighting so fiercely in Europe, for this kept millions of Nazis occupied there and gave us another year to get ready. As fast as our factories could make them and ships could carry them, we sent tanks and trucks and other supplies to Russia and to the British army in Egypt.
     Japan, however, could not be stopped at first. The Japanese captured the Philippine Islands, which belonged to the United States. They captured the great British naval base of Singapore in Asia. They captured the islands of the East Indies, which belonged to Holland. They captured Siam and Burma and pushed on toward India. They captured the Malay Peninsula. They had already seized French Indo-China and a lot of China.
     You probably have a map of Asia in your atlas or geography book. If you look these places up on the map, you'll see how far Japan's armies went in Asia. On a map of the Pacific Ocean, you can find the islands they captured far from Japan, islands with strange names you would never hear about in a history book except for the battles that were fought there in World War II:

     Many of the places the Japanese captured were defended bravely. The Philippines were taken only after the American and Philippine soldiers were all either killed or captured, except the few that escaped to the hills, where little bands of men kept on doing what damage they could to the Japanese conquerors.

Pacific areas in World War II （第二次世界大戰(zhàn)時的太平洋地區(qū)）
     President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill had decided to try to beat Hitler first and then clean up the Japanese. So American and British soldiers were sent to North Africa and fought and beat the German army there. Then they attacked Italy.
     Great numbers of American and British soldiers were assembled in England. From England their airplanes bombed the Germans and fought the German airplanes. Finally, in June, 1944, all was ready for the attack on the main German armies. A huge force of American and British soldiers, under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower, crossed the English Channel and landed on the coast of Normandy in France. They fought the Germans in fierce and bloody battles and chased them back across France to Germany. France and Belgium and Holland were made free and became again independent countries.
     Meanwhile, the Russians who had been fighting the Germans all this time on the other side of Germany, put on a tremendous drive and pushed the Germans back into Germany. They captured Berlin, the capital. Mussolini had been caught and shot by the Italians themselves in Italy, and now Hitler, with his armies defeated, committed suicide. He could not stand the thought of defeat.
     The terrible Nazis were at last beaten, but thousands of people were still homeless and hungry and had to be fed with food shipped in from other countries.
     On the other side of the world, the war against Japan was still going on. Many battles had been fought against the Japanese-airplane battles, sea battles, and land battles. One after another, the islands Japan had overrun were recaptured, not easily but by fierce and bloody fights often with the heat and diseases of tropical jungles to add to the difficulties of our soldiers. In the Pacific war, General Douglas MacArthur was the commanding general. His armies with the help of the navy recaptured the Philippines. They were ready to invade Japan itself, when a terrible new weapon was used against the Japanese, and Japan surrendered.
     This new weapon was the atomic bomb. Just two of them were dropped from American airplanes onto two Japanese cities. They caused such awful destruction that only two were needed.
     Germany surrendered in May, Japan in August of 1945. The biggest and most terrible war in the history of the world was over.