Transcript Pushing the Axis Back

Pushing the Axis Back
Striking Back at The Third Reich
• After the first large Allied invasion of the war
in North Africa were very successful,
Roosevelt decided• At the
, Roosevelt and
Churchhill agreed to step up the bombing of
Germany. The goal of this bombing was to
. Churchill called Italy the “soft underbelly”
of Europe and was
Strategic Bombing
• The allies had been bombing Germany for three
years by this point in the war dropping 2,300 tons
of explosives every-
• This bombing was minor compared to the new
campaign. Between January 1943 and May 1945,
the Royal Air Force and the United States dropped
approximately 53,000 tons of explosives on
Germany every month. It did not destroy the
economy or the peoples morale, but it did
Striking at the Soft Underbelly
• As the bombing campaign increased against
Germany, the invasion of Sicily moved
ahead as well.
•
was placed in overall command
of the invasion. General
and General
of England controlled the troops on the
ground.
• In July of 1943, despite bad weather the
Allied troops made it ashore with few
causalties. A new vehicle -proved to very
effective at bringing in supplies and artillery
to troops on beaches
Striking at the Soft Underbelly
• Eight days later Patton’s troops smashed through enemy lines
and
• Soon the Italian government collapsed-Mussolini was arrestedin September the Italian government announced their
surrender
• However Hitler was
• The allies would have to take this territory back. Allied troops
landed behind enemy lines in Anzio. The German troops were
not surprised and surrounded the allies. It took -Fighting
would continue until May of 1945. This campaign was-
Roosevelt Meets Stalin at Tehran
• Roosevelt met with Stalin before the
invasion of France. In late 1943• They agreed to several things-Soviets
would attack German’s after invasion
of France;
Landing in France
• Churchill and Roosevelt met in Egypt to
plan the invasion-the first decision was
to chose the leader of the campaign.
Most expected -Dwight D. Eisenhower
was chosen to lead the greatest
military invasion in history. This
invasion would be named-
Planning Operation Overlord
• The Germans realized that eventually the
Allies would invade-they heavily fortified the
coast of France
• However the allies advantage was surprisethe Germans did not know ----to convince
the Germans they were right the allies
placed inflated tanks, tents and landing craft
along the coast of Calais-to German spy
planes the decoys looked real-the Germans
were-
Planning Operation Overlord
• By the spring of 1944 everything was ready-over---
• The only thing left was to pick the date and give the
command to go. The invasion would begin at night
and arrive at low tide so that beach obstacles could
be seen. The low tide had to ----A date would have
to be chosen when all of the conditions could be
met. Bad weather would be disastrous to the
mission.
Planning Operation Overlord
• Given all of these conditions there were only
a few days each month that the mission
could be launched. The first opportunity was
between June 5-7, 1944. Eisenhower’s staff
referred to any day that a mission began by
the letter D. The ----Eisenhower had to
make a difficult decision and finally decided
to move forward with the invasion.
The Longest Day
• Nearly 7,000 ships carried more than 100,000 troops towards
the beaches, while-----• The landing went well at Utah with only 200 troops being lostwithin three hours the beach had been taken-however at ----Amazingly the tide slowly turned and when reinforcements
arrived the German defenses broke and the beach was taken.
By the end of the-----------------
• . . . these men came here - British and our
allies, and Americans - to storm these beaches
for one purpose only, not to gain anything for
ourselves, not to fulfill any ambitions that
America had for conquest, but just to preserve
freedom. . . . Many thousands of men have
died for such ideals as these. . . but these
young boys. . . were cut off in their prime. . . I
devoutly hope that we will never again have to
see such scenes as these. I think and hope,
and pray, that humanity will have learned. . .
we must find some way . . . to gain an eternal
peace for this world. Eisenhowersenhower: A
Soldier's Life