Transcript The Allies Turn the Tide

THE ALLIES TURN THE TIDE
23.1
OBJECTIVES
Analyze the reasons for and impact of the Allies’
“Europe First” strategy
 Explain why the battles of Stalingrad and
Midway were major turning points in the war.
 Discuss how the Allies put increasing pressure on
the Axis in North Africa and Europe.

KEY PARTS
Axis and Allies Plan Strategy
 Turning the Tide in Europe
 Increasing the Pressure on Germany
 Turning the Tide in the Pacific

INTRODUCTION
Read section 23.1
 Answer critical thinking questions 4-5

AXIS AND ALLIES PLAN STRATEGY
The attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into
World War II.
 By June 1942 the Allies were battered but still
fighting.
 The Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan)
never had a coordinated strategy to defeat the
Allies, they each focused on their own goals.

CONT.
The Allies (United States, Britain and Russia)
shared more unified goals.
 Roosevelt Churchill and Stalin considered
Germany the most dangerous enemy.
 None felt that Italy or Japan posed a very long
term threat.
 Germany had the resources to bomb, and fight
Naval warfare and could invade the Soviet
Union.
 Europe first was their battle plan and then they
would deal with Japan later.

TURNING TIDE IN EUROPE
The first blow America struck against the Axis
was by fulfilling DFR’s promise to be the “arsenal
of democracy.”
 American industries turned out millions of guns,
tanks and other supplies; enough to keep Soviets
and British battling Germany for years.
 The problem was delivering the supplies.

CONT.
Hitler was determined to cut the sea lines
between the United States and Europe before
American aid could make a difference.
 Wolf packs of German U-boats patrolled the
Atlantic and Caribbean sinking more that 3,500
merchant ships and killing tens of thousands of
Allied seamen.
 Churchill realized the need to eliminate the Uboats.

CONT..
In mid 1943 the Allies began to win the war in
the North Atlantic.
 Convoys of escort carrier protected Allied
shipping and the invention of radar helped Allied
vessels locate U-boats and also long range
bombers and under water depth charges allowed
Allied forces to sink U-boats faster than
Germany could produce them.

CONT…
Germany had attacked Russia in June 1941
sending one army north toward Leningrad and a
second eat toward Moscow and a third south to
Stalingrad.
 Hitler was able to penetrate deeply into the
soviet territory, and killed millions of soldiers
and civilians but he did not achieve their main
objective of conquering the Soviet Union.
 This was due Soviet Resistance and a brutal
Russian Winter that halted the German advance.

CONT….
In 1942 Hitler narrowed his sights and
concentrated his armies in southern Russia.
 His goal was to obtain the rich oil fields, to do
this he would have to take Stalingrad.
 Hitler had his men slowly attack, going house by
house, this allowed the Soviets time to strategize
and trap the German forces, Hitler would not let
his men retreat.
 They suffered from frostbite and sickness and
eventually surrendered on January 31, 1943.

CONT…..
This was a milestone in WWII and allowed the
Soviets to be on the offensive.
 Meanwhile in the South the Allies begin Driving
Germans out of North Africa.
 In October of 1942 the British won a major
victory at El Alamein in Egypt and began to push
westward.
 The next month Allied troops landed in Morocco
and Algeria and began to move east toward key
German Positions.

CONT……
An energetic American officer General Dwight
Eisenhower commanded the Allied invasion of
North Africa.
 He had to go against one of the best military
tacticians of the German Army Erwin Rommel
the Desert Fox.
 In February 1943 Rommel led his Afrika Korps
against the Americans at the Kasserine Pass in
Tunisia.
 Rommel broke through the American lines in an
attempt to reach the Allied supply base.

CONT…….
Rommel made a very crucial mistake; he did not
shore up his supply chains as he went so he ran
out of supplies and was stopped by the American
soldiers.
 This battle taught American leaders a valuable
lesson; they needed aggressive officers.
 So Eisenhower put an innovative tank
commander in charge; General George S. Patton.

CONT……..
Patton was a single minded general known as
Blood and Guts.
 Patton was a brutal leader and had zero
tolerance with his soldiers. His soldiers were to
perform and be the absolute best around barnone and his men loved him for it.
 Patton’s forces advanced east with heghtened
confidence.

CONT………
Simultaneously the British pressed westward
from Egypt trapping Axis forces.
 Patton pushed his men to the limit and moved
faster than any other tank commander, even the
Desert Fox could not maintain pace.
 Patton’s soldiers in May of 1943 took 240,000
German and Italian Prisoners. (Almost the
entirety of Rommel’s Army; Rommel left his men
and escaped)

INCREASING PRESSURE ON GERMANY
Germany was now on the Defensive, and the
Allies decided to increase the bombings in
Germany and to take over Italy.
 Allies begin to invade Italy through Sicily, this
was lead by Eisenhower.
 They were able to take the country over in 38
days and Italy surrendered to the Allies on
September 3, 1943. And five weeks later declared
war on Germany.

CONT.
Germany forces still fight in Italy despite Italian
surrender.
 Hitler was not done with Italy yet, he sent a
small German airborne force to rescue Mussolini
from a mountaintop fortress, and Hitler allowed
him to be the head of northern Italy with the
German Army.
 Although the Allies defeated the Italians in Italy
there was a still a long and slow battle with the
German army there.

CONT..
The rest of the Invasion of Italy was very slow
and the weather made it difficult for the
advances needed.
 Allies had to depend on mule’s to carry supplies
up mountains because the truck would get stuck
in the mud on the steep slopes.
 On top of that the German’s had occupied all the
good defensive positions in the mountains.

CONT…
Stalin continued his demand that Roosevelt and
Churchill open a second front in France.
 To pacify Stalin the Allied forces began relentless
bombing of Germany.
 These bombers were escorted by a famous fighter
squadron called the Tuskegee Airmen.
 This was an African American Fighting
Squadron that flew more than 1,500 missions
over enemy territory, and during their escorts
they never lost a single bomber.

TURNING THE TIDE IN THE PACIFIC
While Allies pursued their Europe First strategy
they did not ignore the Pacific.
 Through May of 1942 the Japanese forces
continued to advance with unstoppable
momentum.
 They took control of the Philippines, Malaya,
Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Wake Island,
Guam, and Burma.
 Then the United States Struck Back.

CONT.
Admiral Yamamoto still knew despite Pearl
Harbor the U.S. Navy was a major threat.
 His goal was to take Midway which was a major
defensive Island for the US in Hawaii. If he did
this it would push the Americans back to
California and then he could take over the
Aleutian Islands in Alaska as well.
 What Yamamoto did not realize was that
Admiral Chester Nimitz commander of the US
Navy in the Pacific knew the Japanese plans.

CONT..
Navy code breakers had intercepted the Japanese
messages.
 Nimitz moved his carriers to Midway and as the
Japanese attacked on June 4, 1942 they were not
expecting the carriers to be there and our planes
took out 4 Japanese Carriers and 250 planes that
were their best pilots.
 The Battle of Midways was the turning point in
the pacific.
