Transcript World War II: Americans at War

World War II: Americans at
War
II. Retaking Europe
Bell Ringer
• Have you ever used the term D-Day?
What did you mean by it? What is it?
• Do you know anybody who fought in
WWII? Who? Where did they fight?
A) Setting the Scene
• Page 600
6) Atlantic Charter: set of principles to
guide the allies in the years to come.
• Basis of the UN
1939-1942
U-boatsJoin
reign the Struggle
B) Americans
By 1942 – 1664 allied ships sunk
• The Battle
the Atlantic:
U-boats
tried to
Admiral
KarlofDornitz
and Erich
Raeder
stop–supplies
going
Britain
1941
Bismarkfrom
sinks
thetoHood
• Convoy
System
U-boat
losses
by year
1939
9, 1940
– or
22,more
1941
– 35, 1942 –
• Wolf– Packs
– 20
U-boats
96,
1943
– 237, 1944
– 241,
• New
techniques
allowed
allies1945
to win– 153.
C) The North Africa Campaign
• British fighting the Italians in Egypt – Germans
send General Erwin Rommel “Desert Fox”
• British General Montgomery beat him at El
Alamein
• US land in Morocco and trap the Germans –
loose first battle at Kasserine Pass – eventually
capture 240,000 troops – Eisenhower in charge
• Casablanca Conference – Churchill and
Roosevelt agree to beat Europe first Asia
second – accept nothing less then unconditional
surrender
D) The Invasion of Italy
• “Soft underbelly”
• July 1943 Patton invaded Sicily
• On threat of invasion, King Emmanuel III
ordered Mussolini arrested and disbanded the
Fascist party – Germans freed him and put him
in charge of Northern Italy
• Italy declared war on Germany
• US invade at Anzio –fighting hard also land at
Cassino
• Germans surrender in April 1945 – US never
took Italy
• Mussolini caught escaping by Italians and shot
Mussolini
• Mussolini is captured by the free Italians
and executed.
E) War in the Soviet Union
• Summer of 1941, Hitler breaks deal with USSR
and invaded – living space – got oil in Romania
wants farmland of Ukraine
• USSR retreats – destroy everything as they go
• Ukrainians and Lithuanians welcome Germans
as liberators – then Nazi’s start executing them
Eitzengruppen
• Stalin wants an invasion of France – relieve
pressure – not yet
F) The Battle of Stalingrad
• Red Army makes stand at Stalingrad –
allow the city to fall but surround it – at
winter launch a counter-attack
• Hitler said fight to death – 90,000
Germans surrender – 330,000 killed – Von
Paulus
• USSR – 1,100,000 killed
• Turning point of the European war
G) The Allied Air War
7) Carpet bombing: planes scatter large
numbers of bomb over a wide area (city)
• Strategic bombing – US bombers bomb
factories, railroads, bridges, and cities B17)(Total War)
• Swinefurt – ball bearing
• Dresden, February 1945 – 300,000 killed –
firestorm – Hamburg – 40,000 killed
• 3,000 planes a day at height
H) The Invasion of Western
Europe
• Operation Overlord – Dwight Eisenhower
in charge - Normandy
• Atlantic wall – German defense of France
• Huge Ally deception at Calais
8) D-Day: day of the invasion of Europe
• 150,000 troops at 5 beaches – Utah and
Omaha – Omaha very bloody 2,000 dead
• By July of 1944 2 mil troops have landed
I) Liberating France
• Patton uses a blitzkrieg to punch through Normandy into
Northern France
• Paris is freed by the French Resistance –
Charles de Gaulle takes over France
• US on border of Germany
J) Battle of the Bulge
•
•
Germans plan one last desperate counter-attack
Have to attack in bad weather because of allied air power
9) Battle of the Bulge: German counter-attack
in Belgium December 1944.
• Formed a bulge in the line – biggest battle in
Western Europe
• African Americans called to the front
• Battered Bastards of Bastogne – 101st
Screaming Eagles
K) The Yalta Conference
• Big three met in Yalta February 1945 –
planned the final offensive and the postwar
world
• Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin
• Germany split in 4 zones (Berlin also)
• Stalin promised elections in Eastern Europe
• Promise to enter war against Japan 3 months
after fall of Germany
• Did not fulfill promises
• Germany unleashes its “vengeance
weapons” V1 and V2
Operation Valkrye
• German Generals Plot to kill Hitler.
• Bomb carried by colonel Count Claus Von
Stauffenberg blow’s up in Hitler’s conference
room at Wolf’s Lair.
• Hitler walks away with scratches
• Many people are rounded up and killed, around
1000.
• Rommel is implicated in the plot and is given a
choice. State funeral
L) The War in Europe Ends
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•
•
•
•
US and USSR on borders of Germany
18 million USSR deaths
9 million German
USSR given permission to take Berlin
Hitler commits suicide in bunker on April
30th 1945 – Germany surrenders on May
8th 1945
• V-E Day
Hitlers End
• April 30, 1945 Hitler and his new wife, Eva
Braun commit suicide. Dr. Joseph Goebels
does also.
• Hitler names Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz as the
second Furher of the 3rd Reich
Review
• Where did Americans join the struggle against
the Axis?
• How did the war in the Soviet Union change
from 1941 – 1943?
• What role did air power play in the war in
Europe?
• Why did the invasion of Western Europe
succeed?
• What events marked the end fo the war in
Europe?