SLJ week 2, day 4

SLJ, Winter Learning Journey
Day 4: Another World War (1939-1945)

At the end of the 1930s, the world has been shaken once more by the start of another World War (WWII). World War Two started on the 1st of September, 1939 when an army from Germany invaded a country called Poland. Two days later, England and France declared war on Germany and WWII began.
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Activity 1: An Eventful Experience 

WWII was made up of many battles and events. Follow this link to read more about the timeline of WWII.

Choose two key events and find out some more information about what happened on those days. On your blog, write a short summary of two events, including the names of people involved and where the event happened.

Event 1: Italy invades Albania
During the 1930's on the 7th of April Italy invades Albania. The Italian invasion of Albania was a brief military campaign by the Kingdom of Italy against the Albanian Kingdom. The conflict was a result of the imperialist policies of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.



Event 2: Air Raids on Australia 
During the 1940's on the 19th of February, Australia was attacked 97 times by the Japan Air Navy. The bombing left at least 235 or more people dead


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Activity 2: A call to Arms 

Over the course of WWII, approximately 140,000 New Zealanders were sent overseas to serve in the war. Many were sent to fight in huge battles, including the Battle of the Atlantic that lasted for 2064 days (over 5 years)! The Battle of the Atlantic came to an end in 1943, in large part due to the heroic efforts of people like Lloyd Trigg, a pilot from New Zealand. He was awarded a special medal from the New Zealand Government for his bravery. It is called a Victoria Cross (‘VC’ for short). A total of 22 New Zealanders have been awarded VCs.



Click on this link to find a list of VC winners. Choose one from the Second World War, and read about him. On your blog tell us about him. Who was he? What did he do to earn a Victoria Cross medal?

John Hinton 
John Hinton is a sergeant, he won his VC medal in 1941, he was amongst a large force of New Zealand. When the germans attacked and a retreat was ordered, Hinton shouted, 'To hell with this! Who will come with me?', and charged two enemy field guns. While being a prisoner of war Hinton escaped twice and made several other attempts. He was told he had been awarded the VC as he lay in hospital recovering from a beating administered  to him after one of those attempts. 


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Bonus Activity: Women at Work

Both men and women served in World War II. Many women chose to enlist as nurses and be stationed overseas caring for wounded soldiers. My nana was one of those nurses. She (Dorothy) spent much of World War II working on a large Red Cross ship that was stationed off the coast of Cairo, Egypt.

For this activity, you are going to imagine that you are just like Dorothy and that you are working as a nurse on a large medical ship.

One day you are walking along the deck of the ship when you hear a loud bang. You start to run as you see smoke coming from the far end of the ship. You run towards the room where your patients are waiting to receive treatment from the doctor. Just as you arrive at the door to their room you hear another loud bang and you…

Complete the story provided above. To earn full points you must write, at least, 8-10 sentences. What happens next?

I shudder with fear as i hear the loud bang, as i'm walking along the ship alone i hear it again. I'm so terrified. As i'm rushing to my injured patients i see smoke coming from the far end of the ship, i get even terrified especially for my poor injured patients who are waiting for their treatment. Just as i'm at the door of my patients, i hear the loud bang again and i turn my head to them at the end of the ship and it seems as if there was another country attacking us. There were soldiers bombing the ship so i tell my clients to keep down and be quiet then i quickly yell out 'Bomb Attack'. As i'm yelling bomb attack my people run and get there weapons. There also seems to be a shoot out and some of our people are dying out there so i run and get a weapon and started shooting. As i'm shooting i see the soldiers climbing on our ship towards the patients, so i run and start shooting but there was too many soldiers there and i couldn't fight back so i run into there room and locked the doors. But the soldiers manage to open one door and they killed some of our patients and nurses, and the rest survived. Then they went to the driving area of the ship and killed them, most of our soldiers were dead and some were camping down in the food store at the bottom of the ship and they managed to survive but the rest of our soldiers died. As i walk out of the room i see no more shooting nor bombing as if timed stopped, so i run to the other soldiers and told them that it ended. After all of this happened, the soldiers left alive made another in case something like this happens again.