Transcript World War II

World War II
Ending the War in Europe
and the Pacific
Germany
D-Day
• The Plan
•For two years the US and
Britain had building an
invasion force (3 million
men) to take mainland
Europe back from the
Germans.
• The Allies bombed Western
Europe to disrupt German supply
lines and infrastructure.
• June 6th 1944
• 5 beaches were to be secured
along 60 miles of coastline by a
joint Allied force
• Nearly 7,000 ships were used to
support the invasion
• Why wasn’t Germany Ready?
• Germany had decided attack was
improbable due to weather and
sea conditions at this time.
• We knew that via intercepted
intelligence traffic
• Result
• In 48 hours 176,000 front line
combat troops had landed
•In 3 weeks 1 million troops,
171,000 vehicles, and
556,648 tons of supplies were
in Europe
•The first steps in freeing
Europe of Hitler had been
completed.
• Battle of the Bulge
• The last great German offensive
that drove a bulge into the Allied
lines, but ultimately cost the
Germans irreplaceable men and
equipment.
• Following losing this battle all
the Germans could do was
retreat.
• Liberation of the Death Camps
• As the Allies pushed forward
they found Hitler’s death camps
and the horrors they contained.
• Victory in Europe (V-E Day)
• With Berlin about to fall Hitler
committed suicide and Germany
fell.
• May 8, 1945 Germany
unconditionally surrenders and
the war in Europe is over.
• Occupied Germany
• Germany as a nation and Berlin
the city divided into 4 zones run
by the US, Soviets, British, and
French.
Japan
• Planned Invasion of Japan
• Operation Olympic and
Operation Coronet
•Troops were routed from
Europe to Pacific to invade
Japan.
•The two southern islands of
Kyushu and Honshu were to be
invaded
•Proposed casualty figures being
floated around of 100,000+ to 1
million men
•Plan calls for invasion that
would make D-Day look like
an opening act
•Some argued that Japan would
collapse on itself with all they
had lost, especially after
continuous US bombing
•Invasions set for December
1945 and March 1946
•Japan was reading defenses
•The Problem
•America and her men
growing war weary
•Those at home are tired, as
are those actually fighting.
• Roosevelt Dies
•FDR died of a stroke in April
1945
•VP Harry Truman was sworn
in as President
• The Atomic Bomb
•The Manhattan Project
•Program set up to develop
the atomic bomb with
facilities in various places.
•Los Alamos, New Mexico
was where the bomb was
actually built and tested.
• The Creators Debate
•Some who created the bomb
argued against it’s use but in
the end agreed that it should be
used to:
–Save American lives that
could be lost in an invasion
–Justify the expense of
building the bombs
–Place the US atop the Soviets
in the post war world power
structure.
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki
•On August 6th, 1945 the Enola
Gay dropped “Little Boy” on
Hiroshima
–Instantly killed 80,000 people
–35,000 injured
–7,000-degree heat
–Many died later from
radiation poisoning
•Japan did not respond for a call
th
to surrender so on August 8
1945, “Fat Man” was dropped
on Nagasaki
–Killed 40,000
• Victory Japan Day (V-J Day)
• On September 2nd 1945, the
Japanese formally surrendered on
the battleship Missouri
• US Occupied Japan
• Under the command of Gen.
McArthur Japan was occupied
and administered by the US
•Japan’s economy was
introduced to free market
practices and a constitutional
democracy was put into
place.
• The United Nations is Born
• At the Yalta Conference in Feb.
1945 FDR, Stalin, and Churchill
agree to create a new
international peacekeeping bodythe United Nations.
• In San Francisco the charter is
written by the 50 nations in
attendance.
• The Security Council
•The real power of the U.N.
–Five permanent seats given to
US, Soviet Union, Britain,
France, and China with veto
power.
–The other 6 seats were to be
rotated among nations elected
by the General Assembly.
• Crimes of War
• Nuremberg War Trials
•Nazi leaders were tried for war
crimes and some were
sentenced to death.
• Japanese War Trials
•Like Nuremberg some leaders
were sentenced to death.
• Post War World
•The world was safe from men
like Hitler, but now the US
and Soviet Union were
prepared to square off for
world domination.