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World War II was the costliest war in history in terms of human lives. More people were killed in this war than in any war before or after it--about 17 million people, including 6 million European Jews.

The war was fought on three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. It pitted Germany, Italy, and Japan against the allied forces led by Great Britain, France, and the United States. The war began with the rise of Nazism in Germany and Fascism in Italy which resulted in Germany invading Poland on September 1, 1939.

Sample some of the following activities to learn more about World War II.

Places To Go

The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out about World War II.

The National D-Day Museum
Visit the D-Day Museum and learn about the history of D-Day, see maps and photographs, find a D-Day timeline, read personal histories by the men and women who participated.

Hiroshima Archive  
Virtually visit Hiroshima, Japan. On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was the site of the first atomic bomb that was dropped on a populated area. The bomb leveled about 90% of the city. It is estimated that about 130,000 people were killed, injured, or classified as missing. Today, most Hiroshima has been reconstructed, but there is a devastated section that has been preserved as a Peace City to graphically show the effects of an atomic bomb. Read the personal accounts of Hiroshima survivors.

Pearl Harbor Remembered
Travel to Pearl Harbor and hear stories from survivors of the bombing, see a map of the area, find a timeline of the events, and more.

Memories of the White Rose
Virtually travel to Germany and learn about the resistence group called the White Rose.

Museum of Science and Industry : U-505
Take a virtual tour of a German U-boat.

First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
Visit Guadalcanal. It is the largest of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. From August of 1942 to February of 1943, allied troops fought to recover this island from the Japanese. Read one soldier's account of his time at Guadalcanal.

WWII Combat Europe
Spend time at the Normandy beachhead where the first Allied amphibious troops landed about 12:15 A.M. on June 6, 1944--D-Day.

USS Arizona
Virtually visit the USS Arizona. The bombing of this battleship killed 1,177 men. The bomb that hit it ignited an ammo magazine which caused a hugh explosion. Within about nine minutes, the ship had sunk.

USS Utah
Visit the USS Utah battleship. It, too was sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Like the USS Arizona, the USS Utah has been made into a national shrine to honor the crew members who lost their lives. Have students scroll through the names of the crew survival list and see if any of the seamen were actually from Utah. Interestingly, of all the ships that were damaged or sunk in the raid on Pearl Harbor, all but 3 of them were raised and repaired to resume their role in the war. The ships not repaired were the USS Arizona--considered too badly damaged to be salvaged, the USS Oklahoma--raised and considered too old to be worth repairing, and the obsolete USS Utah--considered not worth the effort.

The Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936
Virtually travel back in time to Berlin of 1936. Views from this website suggest that if the United States and other leading countries had boycotted the 1936 Olympics in protest of Hitler's activities, it might have bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny. Read about Hitler's "facade of hospitality" for the participants and worldwide spectators at the games. Learn about Jesse Owens. "He is the best remembered of all the Olympic athletes. Why? Because he, son of a sharecropper and grandson of a slave, achieved what no Olympian before him had accomplished; he not only discredited a heinous dictator, Adolph Hitler, but he affirmed that individual excellence, rather than race or national origin, distinguishes one man from another."

Battleship Bismark
Visit this famous German battleship. During its time in the oceans, it was the largest and most powerful warship afloat.

WWII Memorial
Visit the proposed site of the WWII Memorial.. It will be the first national memorial dedicated to all who served during World War II. The memorial will honor all military veterans of the war, the citizens on the home front, the nation at large, and "the high moral purpose and idealism that motivated the nation's call to arms". It will be located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. at the Rainbow Pool site at the east end of the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.President Clinton dedicated the memorial site during a formal ceremony on Veterans Day, November 11, 1995.Groundbreaking is projected for Veterans Day 2000.

USS Missouri
Visit the USS Missouri battleship. It is the place where General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, on 2 September 1945, officially accepted the surrender of Japan, ending World War II.

Maginot Line
Travel to the Maginot Line. It was a system of fortifications built along the eastern border of France in the 1930s. It was named after André Maginot, who was French minister of war at the time and directed the construction. The line consisted of defensive forts, anti-tank measures, and lookout posts. It was not completed and had two major holes--along the Belgian border and across a piece of forested land called the Ardennes. Ultimatley, these fortifications did little to help protect France from the advance of German forces.

WWII Oral History Website
Meet men and women who served in WWII and read their personal stories. The site also has accounts of women who dealt with the hardships of life on the home front while their husbands were gone. Another site, Memories of War, is also devoted to recording the stories of World War II veterans.

Navajo Code Talkers
Get to know these Navajo men and learn about the unique role that they played in WWII. About 400 Navajo individuals served in the Marine Corps as radiomen. They sent messages in a special code that was based on the Navajo language and which was almost impossible for intercepters to decipher. For words that were not part of the Navajo language, they used regular words. For instance, in their code, a fighter plane was a dah-he- tih-hi which is a hummingbird, and a submarine was a besh- lo or iron fish. (Choctaw Native Americans served in a similar manner as code talkers in WWI).

What Did You Do in the War, Grandma 
Meet some of the women of WWII and learn about the roles they played. This project was written by students in Rhode Island who interviewed their grandmothers, friends, and other relatives in the community.

Pearl Harbor Remembered : America Listens To The President
Spend time with President Franklin Roosevelt and listen to an audio file of his address to Congress on December 8, 1941 in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

EarthStation1.com's Radio Propaganda Page
Meet Tokyo Rose. Her real name was Iva Ikuko Toguri. Find out if she was an enemy or a hero. This site has a streaming RealVideo 5.0 file of the 15 minute segment when she was interviewed on 60 Minutes.

Tuskegee Airmen
Meet the Tuskegee Airmen. There were a highly decorated African-American air squadron.

OPERATIVES, SPIES, & SABOTEURS: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II’s OSS
Learn about America's Ranger and Airborne troops. This site has a poignant photographic history of the war.

Women Come to the Front : Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During World War II
Meet Therese Bonney, Toni Frissell, Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, Clare Boothe Luce, Janet Flanner, Esther Bubley, Dorothea Lange, and May Craig. They assumed active roles in the news media during the war, breaking ground for future jobs for women. "In spite of pressure on women to give up their jobs after the war, the seeds of permanent change had been planted. Women began to question social and economic rules and demand equal access to educational and career options. By the 1980s, women had entered professional schools and careers--including journalism--in record numbers."

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Winston Churchill
Joseph Stalin
Meet the "Big Three". These were the heads of the main allied countries who participated in the Yalta Conference in February of 1945. Yalta is a city on the coast of the Black Sea which was then part of the USSR and is now part of Ukraine. Their mission was to discuss post-war arrangements for Europe. Some of the agreements made at the conference included plans for dividing Germany into four zones of occupation (American, British, French, and Soviet), plans for war crimes trials, and plans for war reparations. Read some of the original documents pertaining to the conference.

George Marshall
Geet to know General George Marshall. He was one of the main military strategists of WWII. After the war, he served as Secretary of State. Learn about the Marshall Plan that he implemented during his time as Secretary of State.

Emperor Hirohito, Accepting the Potsdam Declaration, Radio Broadcast
Read the words of Emperor Hirohito of Japan as he addressed the people of Japan in the aftermath of Hiroshima.

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel
Meet German field marshall, Erwin Rommel. His nickname was the "Desert Fox" because of his campaign in northern Africa against mostly British forces. Find out if Rommel remained loyal to Hitler and how his life ended.

The Five Sullivan Brothers Perished with the Cruiser USS Juneau
Get to know the five Sullivan brothers. Their names were George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert, and they were from Waterloo, Iowa. All five of them died (along with 700 of their crewmen) when the USS Juneau was sunk off Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942. When the five brothers enlisted, they gave their recruiter the requirement that all five of them had to serve together. After the death of these five brothers, naval regulations were changed so that brothers could no longer serve on the same ship. Read about the sad account of the sinking of this ship.

Ernie Pyle
Get to know Ernie Pyle, the Amercan journalist. In the 1930s, he wrote a popular syndicated column about the lives and hopes of everyday people. During World War II he served as a war correspondent in Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific. He became the most popular of all correspondents, writing about the experiences of enlisted men rather than about battles or the exploits of officers. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished correspondence in 1944. In 1945, he was killed by Japanese machine gun fire.

Audie Murphy
Meet Audie Murphy. He was a country-western songwriter and singer and a Hollywood actor. He was also the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was a soldier in WWII, and when he returned, he wrote a book called To Hell and Back. The popularity of the book launched his acting and singing career, and he eventually starred in the movie, To Hell and Back, based on his book.

Private Art
Meet Pvt. Arthur Pranger. This site is based on the letters he sent and received over 2 1/2 years in England, Normandy, and most of the European theatre. This is from a letter to his mother upon his arrival in England, "They sure go for tea in a big way over here. Every time I turn around somebody is always shoving a cup of tea in my fist. People even stop us on the street and invite us for tea and cake. The kids around here are always asking for chewing gum and candy. They can't get that over here and everything is rationed."

Douglas MacArthur
Spend time with General Douglas MacArthur. During WWII, he was commande of U.S. troops in the Pacific. At the end of the war in the Pacific, MacArthur presided over the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay and oversaw Japan's occupation and reconstruction.

Mussolini and Italy
Meet Benito Mussolini. He was the Facist leader of Italy. Facism is a totalitarian philosophy of government that glorifies the state and nation and assigns to the state control over every aspect of national life. Italy was suffering from the aftermath of World War I when Mussolini came to power. He restored order through terrorism with armed groups. Mussolini's great ambition was to restore the ancient greatness of Italy and he used grand slogans and emotional speeches and built monumental buildings for the glory of Italy. He ruled Italy from1921 until his death in 1945. Mussolini allied himself and Italy with Germany and Japan during World War II.

Sid's War : The Story of an Argyll at War
Spend time with Sid Martindale and learn about an Englishman's experiences in the war. "He survived the heat of El Alamein, the beaches of Sicily and the mud of Italy while some of his close friends did not make it back." El Alamein is a town in northern Egypt. It was the site of a major British battle and victory against the German forces of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

Emperor Hirohito
Meet Hirohito. He was the emperor of Japan during and after World War II.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Meet Dwight D. Eisenhower. In June, 1942, General Eisenhower was named U.S. commander of the European theater of operations. His recognition as a World War II military commander helped him earn the presidency in 1952.

The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
Meet Rosie the Riveter. Rosie represented the influx of women into the workplace to replace men who had gone to war. "During World War II, an unprecedented number of American women responded to government encouragement to enter the high-paying world of heavy war-production industry. Women who had worked at pink-collar jobs, or in lower-paying women's industrial jobs, flocked to war production work as an opportunity to learn new skills and make higher wages."

The Challenge of Democracy 
Listen to audio files of President Franklin Roosevelt's official declarations of war.

Wright Museum : America at War
Use this interactive timeline to click on a date and find WWII events as well as other things that were happening in the United States during a particular year.

The History Place : World War II Timeline
See a timeline of WWII with photos and text. This site has an additional section specifically about the war in the Pacific.

Dad's War
This site encourages family members to find out about and recored the stories of relatives who were in World War II. Have students record the stories of their own relatives who may have been in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, etc.

U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II
The merchant Marine refers to the ships and personnel that act as floating warehouses for good and supplies. During wartime, the merchant Marine plays a vital role in transporting troops and war materials and equipment around the world. During WWII, merchant Marine seamen died at a rate that was greater than any other branch of the military except for the regular Marine Corps. More than 700 U.S. merchant Marine ships were sunk during WWII. Thousands of merchant civilian seamen were killed and many more thousands were wounded. About 600 civilian merchant seamen were made prisoners of war. Learn more about the role of the merchant Marine in WWII. Visit the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, on the north shore of Long Island.

Powers of Persuasion : Poster Art from World War II
Look at posters that the American government used as part of its campaign to gain public support for the war.

The Higgins Boat Project
According to this site, General Eisenhower claimed that the Higgins boat helped end the war. Without these specially designed landing craft, the allied forces could not have landed on an open beach such as at Normandy, and the whole strategy of the war would have been different. "The boat could land a platoon of 36 men with their equipment, or a jeep and 12 men, extract itself quickly, turn around without broaching in the surf, and go back out to get more troops and/or supplies. This was critical - any landing craft that could not extract itself would hinder the ability of succeeding waves to reach the beachhead."

Codebreaking and Secret Weapons in World War II
Learn about the efforts made by both the allies and axis forces to keep their secrets secret.

A-Bomb WWW Museum
Learn about Little Boy which was the code name for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

The Battle of the Bulge
Find out about the largest land battle of World War II. More than a million men participated in this battle including 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. The battle lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945. At the conclusion of the battle the casualties were 19,000 Americans killed, 200 British killed, and 100,000 Germans killed, wounded or captured.

Lest We Forget : World War II
Find information about the European and Pacific theatres of war, photographs, and more.

PBS : The American Experience
Learn about some of the key figures in World War II and find a timeline of the events.

World War II
Read about some of the major battles of the war in both the European and Pacific theatres. This is part of the HistoryNet site.

World War II Plus 55
Use this day-by-day, month-by-month calendar to learn about America's involvement in World War II. It begins with Novemer of 1941

Hyperwar : A Hypertest History of the Second World War
Explore this extensive WWII site.

The Valour and the Horror : Canada at War
Explore the Canadian perspective of World War II.

Atomic Bomb Decision
On August 6th and 9th, 1945, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the first atomic bombs used in warfare. From this site, find documents on the decision to use the atomic bomb that have been reproduced here in full-text form.

National D-Day Memorial Foundation
Read the living histories of the men and women who participated in the D-Day invasion at Normandy.

World War II Timeline - 1917-45
From United States isolationism to the rise of Hitler to the war in the Pacific, use this WWII timeline to select specific events which will lead you to further information and resources.

EarthStation1.com: The Propaganda Poster Page
Propaganda refers to a manipulation of public opinion. Look at the posters and adverstisements that the U.S. government used. Would the "tone" of some of these posters work today? 

Bataan Death March
Learn about the Bataan Death March. Bataan is part of the Philippines. U.S. and Filipino troops were regrouping there when they were captured by Japanese troops. To transfer these prisoners to a prison camp near Cabanatuan, the Japanese put them through the infamous death march where they were forced to walk about 100 miles over 5 to 12 days without food or water. Of the 75,000 prisoners on the march, about 17,000 died along the way. Many more died in the poor conditions of the prison camp.

German Armed Forces in WWII
Learn about the military history of the German Armed Forces and European Axis Allies from 1919-1945.

The Polish Campaign
Find out about the fate of Poland, one of the earliest countries to be overtaken and occupied by German forces.

Admiral Nimitz Museum
Learn about Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. He headed the naval fighting forces in the Pacific throughout World War II.

Dare and Endure : World War II
Find a list of code names used during the war, a list of men who served in the war and late became famous, memoirs of servicemen, information about the different military units and divisions, and more.

The Women's Army Corps
"Over 150,000 American women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. Members of the WAC were the first women other than nurses to serve within the ranks of the United States Army. Both the Army and the American public initially had difficulty accepting the concept of women in uniform. However, political and military leaders, faced with fighting a two-front war and supplying men and materiel for that war while continuing to send lend-lease material to the Allies, realized that women could supply the additional resources so desperately needed in the military and industrial sectors. Given the opportunity to make a major contribution to the national war effort, women seized it. By the end of the war their contributions would be widely heralded." Find out more. This site has great photographs of WACs at work.

The Institute on World War II and the Human Experience
Through letters, diaries, manuscripts, photographs, newspaper clippings, uniforms, ration coupons, maps, etc., learn about the men and women who served in World War II and about the civilians who helped on the home front.

World War II Photos
View dozens of photographs from World War II.

Women at War
Learn about how women, in spite of the doubts of some men of the day, rose to fill jobs previously held by men. According to this site, "One labor analyst warned that, 'The employment of millions of untrained workers, including old men, youths, and housewives,...[would] inevitably result in a material and gradual dilution of labor skills, which...[meant] a decline in manpower output."

Battle of Britain
Learn about this daring battle where allied troops were backed up to the coast of France in the town of Dunkirk. An armada of ships from England picked up the soldiers and brought them across the English Channel to safety. Ships of all kinds were used, ranging from Royal Navy ships to fishing boats. The Royal Air Force provided cover, protecting the troops from German planes. Over 300,000 soldiers were saved from the oncoming German army.

Spitfire and Me Bf 10
Find out about the two main fighting aircraft of the European theatre in WWII--the British Spitfires and the German Messerschmitt Bf.109s.

U.S.S. Indianapolis
Learn about the U.S.S. Indianapolis. "At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men were left floating in shark infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men went on to survive." Find out what the ship was like, read survivors' stories, and learn about the efforts of the crew to clear the name of their court-marshalled captain.

Casualties: U.S. Navy and Coast Guard Vessels, World War II, 7 December 1941-1 October 1945
Scroll through the lists of ships that were damaged in World War II. Which cateogory of ships were most often the target of successful attacks---warships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, mine layers and sweepers, gun boats, torpedo boats, patrol vessels, submarine chasers, or landing ships/craft?

Virtual Field Trips are teacher and student-created tours of curricular topics. (You can learn how to use this UEN Virtual Field Trip tool created by UEN for Utah educators).

• Journey Through Topaz 
• Living History Project

Lesson Plans/Webquests

• On the Home Front
• Was the United States Ready for Pearl Harbor?
• Images at War
• Getting Involved in War
• The Legacy of Pearl Harbor
• Pearl Harbor
• World War II: The Pacific
• The Decision to Drop the Bomb
• Heroes Among Us
• World War II : A Soldier’s Perspective
• The War of the Worlds

• Black, Wallace B. Blitzkrieg. New York : Crestwood House ; Toronto : Collier Macmillan Canada; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1991.
• Colman, Penny. Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II. New York : Crown Publishers, c1995.
• Cross, Robin. Victims of War. New York : Thomson Learning, 1993.
• Devaney, John. America Triumphs, 1945. New York : Walker, 1995.
• Dolan, Edward F. America in World War II, 1945. Brookfield, CT : Millbrook Press, c1994.
• Grant, Neil. Heroes of World War II. Austin, Tex. : Steck-Vaughn, 1990, c1989.
• Krull, Kathleen. V is for Victory : America Remembers World War II. New York : Knopf, c1995.
• O'Connor, Barbara. The Soldiers' Voice : The Story of Ernie Pyle. Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Books, c1996.
• Oleksy, Walter G. Military Leaders of World War II. New York, NY : Facts on File, c1994.
• Pietrusza, David. The Invasion of Normandy. San Diego, CA : Lucent Books, c1996.
• Ross, Stewart. World Leaders. New York : Thomson Learning, 1993.
• Sherrow, Victoria. Hiroshima. New York : New Discovery Books ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1994.
• Stein, R. Conrad. D-Day. Chicago : Childrens Press, 1993.
• Taylor, Mike. Battles of World War Two. Edina, MN : Abdo & Daughters, c1998.
• Whitman, Sylvia. Uncle Sam Wants You! : Military Men and Women of World War II. Minneapolis : Lerner Publications Co., c1993.
• Zeinert, Karen. Those Incredible Women of World War II. Brookfield, Conn. : Millbrook Press, c1994