Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell
Brigadier General Claire L. Chennault
American Volunteer Group (“Flying Tigers”)
Vice Admiral Richard L. Ghormley
Mark XIV Torpedo
Brigadier Orde Wingate
“Chindits”
Merrill’s Marauders
Myitkyina
Operation Matterhorn
Operation Blau
Operation Uranus
Major General Lloyd Fredendall
Imphal-Kohima Offensive
Gen. William Slim
Task Force 58
Vice Admiral Mark Mitscher
Lieutenant General Saito Yoshitsugu
Admiral Toyoda Soemu
Admiral Ozawa Jisaburo
First Mobile Fleet
Field Marshal Georg von Kuechler
Panther Line
Jean Moulin
Oradour sur Glane
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg
Operation Goodwood
 

Polish Home Army
Warsaw Uprising
Admiral Nicholas de Nagybana Horthy
Obersturmbannfuhrer Joachim Peiper
General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel
SS Generaloberst Sepp Dietrich
St. Vith
Mindoro
Lieutenant General Walter Krueger
Manila
Vice Admiral Ugaki Matome
Thunder Gods Corps
Major General Harry S. Schmidt
V Amphibious Corps
Los Alamos, New Mexico
Brigadier General Leslie Groves
Military Committee
Colonel Paul W. Tibbets
509th Bomb Group (Composite)
Operation Downfall
Henry L. Stimson
Fritz Todt
Organization Todt (OT)
Albert Speer
Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs)
Trial of Major War Criminals at Nuremberg

The USS Essex prowls the Pacific Ocean in March 1943, its flight deck crowded with new
F6F Hellcats, the first fighter to give U.S. Navy pilots superiority over the dreaded Japanese
Zero.  (Courtesy of the Naval Historical Center)

POSSIBLE ESSAYS

1) Describe the course of the Guadalcanal Campaign, August 7, 1942 to Mid-February 1943. What impact did it have on the course of the Pacific War?

2) What were the most important contributions that General Douglas MacArthur made to the Allied victory in the Pacific War from 1942 to 1945? Did he commit any major errors?

3) Pretend that it is 1943, and you are a candid German officers who still has a position with the Oberkommado der Wehrmact. What major military mistakes would you try to stop your Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, from making over the next two years?

4) Why did the Battle of Kursk (July 1943) result in such a major disaster for the German Army, and what impact did it have on the course of the war on the Eastern Front?

5) Why did the British and Americans make the commitment to invade Italy in September 1943, and why did the Italian Front turn into a strategic dead end?

6) Why did the famous D-Day landings that launched Operation OVERLORD on June 6, 1944, meet with success for the Allies?

7) What did Operation MARKET GARDEN, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery's attempt to end the war in Europe with a bold airborne/armored thrust in September 1944, end in failure? What should Montgomery have done instead?

8) Summarize the main contributions that Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., made in the war against Hitler's Germany from 1943 through 1945?

9) What were some of the major errors committed between June 1944 and May 1945 by General Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Army, that resulted in needless American deaths and the prolongation of the war in northwest Europe.

10) Why did President Harry S. Truman order two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August 1945? Do you feel Truman had legitimate reasons for his decision, or was it a tragic mistake?

11) Pretend that you are an American staff officer assigned to General Dwight David Eisenhower from 1943 to 1945. Which of his decisions would you have urged him to reconsider?

A landing craft carries American troops toward Omaha Beach on the Normandy
coast, June 6, 1944. (Courtesy of the Naval Historical Center)