Transcript D-day

What am I?
• I have streets, but
no pavement.
I have cities, but
no buildings.
I have forests, yet
no trees.
I have rivers, yet
no water.
• I run both hot and
cold. I appear blue,
but am really red.
Pearl Harbour Homework
• Mistuo Fuchida,
published in 1991,
50 years later, his
memory.
• Provoked by Pearl
Harbor: The White
House Meetings of
FDR and Churchill,
December, 1941.
The War became a World War when the U.S. joined because all
of the major powers were now involved.
How is “world war” different from “total war”?
The Soviets and the British were happy because they would
now have U.S. support. A major advantage.
• The Allied Troops failed miserably in Dieppe, France
• Hitler continues to control a large portion of Europe and
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everyone in Nazi Germany is part of the war effort.
Germany relies on foreign oil imports economically. Hitler
continues to invade places to solve this shortage. Many
times this leads to failure.
Assassination attempts begin on Adolf Hitler
The Allies began to pick German cities as targets for
bombs. This was to cause terror in German citizens.
German aircraft companies cannot keep up with their
losses, so the Allied air attacks become more successful.
What Else is Happening?
– July 22, 1942: Germans begin the mass
deportation of over 300,000 Jews from
the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka
killing center
– September 12, 1942: Germans complete
the mass deportation of about 265,000
Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka
– March 22nd, 1943: Auschwitz is opened,
the most efficient facility with gas
chambers
The Battle of Stalingrad
 Hitler launches an attack on the Eastern Front
in Stalingrad, Russia. He wants to gain control
of Russia once and for all.
 This attack is a failure. Remember what was
said about the cold!
• November 23, 1942: Soviet troops
counterattack at Stalingrad, trapping the
German Sixth Army in the city
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUX7mAeeF04
By 1944:
 The Russians have
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defeated the Germans
and are advancing in
the East
The Allies are
victorious in Africa
and launch an assault
on mainland Italy
through Sicily
The Russian Front
• On August 23rd, 1939,
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•
Stalin and Hitler signed a
“Non-Aggression Pact”
which vowed not to
interfere in each other’s
business
On June 22nd, 1941,
Germany invaded the Soviet
Union
Having purged his military
of many of its best officers,
Stalin and the Soviets were
not ready for war
The Eastern Front
• The early days saw the
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Germans drive into the Soviet
Union almost reaching
Moscow by October
The German army besieged
Leningrad for what was to
become a two year struggle
ending in the death of more
than one million civilians
When the severe Russian
winter arrived the Nazi
offensive broke down and the
German attack was halted
German progress!
The Tide Turns
• The Nazis needed supplies and
resources to continue the war so
victory in the Soviet Union was
essential
 From Sept. 14th, 1942 – Feb. 2nd,
1943 – the Germans and Russians
fought for the strategic city of
Stalingrad on the Volga River
 Hitler and the Nazis lost the battle
– 500 000 German and other
troops were killed or taken
prisoner
• By the Autumn of 1943 the
Germany army of 2.5 million
soldiers faced an army of 5.5
million Soviet soldiers
Italy
 From July 10th to August 17th – the Allies including the
Canadians fought and took Sicily from the German Army –
Codenamed “Operation Husky”
 The Campaign of Italy was designed to take the pressure
off their Russian Allies and pull German troops out of
north-western Europe readying the area for Operation
“Overlord.” They were creating a “third front” to distract
the Germans.
• On September 9th, 1943 the attack began on Italy
• The Canadians were forced to fight for every meter of the
mountainous terrain as the Germans refused to give it up
The Italians Surrender
 On the 8th of September,
1943, the Italian Government
surrenders
 The Allied planners thought
the Italian Campaign would
be over in a matter of weeks.
• They were wrong. Italy would
represent frustration and
death for thousands of Allied
soldiers in a bitter stagnated
fight.
• It would be a year before
Allied troops entered Rome,
and the Invasion of France
would overshadow that
victory.
The Battle for Italy
 When Italy formally
surrendered on September 8th,
the Italians separated into two
camps, pro-Allied and proGerman factions.
• On September 9, the Allies
landed Americans at Salerno
and the British landed at
Taranto
• By September 26 the Allies
had built a force of 189,000
men and 30,000 vehicles.
• Following the Italian surrender,
the German Army took control
of the defense of Germany
Meanwhile in Ortona
• Ortona is an ancient city that
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consists of narrow streets and
connected houses
Much of Ortona was reduced to
rubble, making it difficult for
the Canadians to use tanks
The Germans barricaded
themselves in houses and
mined the streets
The fighting was house-tohouse-literally – the Canadians
blasted their way through walls
to get from building to
building.
The battle continued over
Christmas Day, 1943, but three
days later the Germans
withdrew.
The Liberation of Rome
• Following the fall of Ortona,
the Allies ground to a halt due
to blizzards and drifting snow
at the end of December
 The Allied focus then turned
to the western front where it
was considered to have the
best chance of a breakthrough
towards Rome.
• It took four major offensives
between January and May
1944 before the Allies broke
through
• Rome was declared an open
city by the German army and
the Allies took possession on
June 4th.
Significant Canadian Contribution
• Total Canadian
casualties in the
20-month
Mediterranean
campaign (Sicily
and Italy)
numbered 25,264
of which more than
5,900 were fatal.
• http://www.youtub
e.com/watch?v=Z
WKLKxPzuSw
A QUICK Break
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vesYwVK9iA
D-Day
June 6th, 1944
The Move on to France
• Having the Germans
occupied in Italy
allowed the allies to
move forward with
their plan to open up
the long awaited
western front in
Europe
The Plan
• Winston Churchill and
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Franklin Roosevelt agreed
it was time to open up a
new front in the West
through the beaches of
France
The obvious choice for a
landing area was the Pas
de Calais. So the Allies
decided to attack in
Normandy instead, but
believed they had to
deceive the Germans they
intended to attack
elsewhere
Normandy It Is!
• Normandy
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is a
peninsula
on the
French
Coast
It was
chosen
because
the
Germans
expected
the attack
to be on
the Pas de
Calais
The Criteria
1. The enemy must remain
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3.
4.
ignorant of the
proposed landing site
The enemy must be
prevented from bringing
up reinforcements
quickly once the allies
landed
Complete Allied air and
naval superiority in the
English Channel
Local defences must
largely be destroyed by
air and sea
bombardment
Operation “Overlord”
• There would be five
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
sectors that would
be attacked:
Utah – American
Omaha – American
Gold – British
Juno – Canadian
Sword - British
The Attack – June 6th, 1944
The Atlantic Wall
• The Atlantic Wall was an
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extensive system of coastal
fortifications built by the
Germans between 1942 and
1944
Built along the western
coast of Europe to defend
against an anticipated
Anglo-American led Allied
invasion of the continent
from Great Britain.
Thousands of forced
laborers were forced to
construct these permanent
fortifications along the
Dutch, Belgian and French
coasts
The Atlantic Wall
• Early in 1944, Field Marshal Erwin
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Rommel was assigned to improve
the defenses of the Wall.
A string of reinforced concrete
pillboxes were built along the
beaches to house machine guns,
antitank guns, and light artillery.
Minefields and antitank obstacles
were planted on the beaches and
underwater obstacles and mines
were planted in the waters just off
shore to destroy incoming craft
By the time of the invasion, the
Germans had laid almost 6 million
mines in northern France.
The Atlantic Wall!
The Time Has Come
• On the evening of
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June 5th paratroopers
dropped in to secure
bridges for the allied
advance
Heavy bombers
dropped their
payloads on what was
supposed to be the
beach defenses
In the early morning
the largest armada of
ships left Britain for
the French coast
The Canadians on D-Day
• Of the nearly 150,000 Allied
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troops who landed or parachuted
into the invasion area, 14,000
were Canadians
The Royal Canadian Navy
contributed 110 ships and 10,000
sailors in support of the landings
while the R.C.A.F. had helped
prepare the invasion by bombing
targets inland
Canadians suffered 1074
casualties, including 359 killed.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/
kitchener-waterloo/kitchenerveteran-recounts-d-daymemories-1.790381
The Battle for Normandy
• For the first month following the D•
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Day landings, a stalemate developed
during which the Allies built up their
forces
In July, Canadian troops helped
capture Caen and then turned
towards Falaise where they aimed at
joining an American advance from
the south to encircle the German
forces in Normandy.
By August 21, the Germans had
either retreated or been destroyed
between the Canadian-British and
American pincers
The ten-week Normandy Campaign
cost the Canadians alone more than
18,000 casualties, 5000 of them
fatal.
SPR
The Liberation of Northwest Europe
• September 1944 the British
captured the Belgian port of
Antwerp
• It was a key victory for the
allies because they
desperately required its
docking facilities to bring in
supplies.
• The problem was that the
Germans occupied both banks
of the 70-kilometre long
Scheldt River estuary linking
Antwerp to the sea.
•Realizing the value of Antwerp to the Allied supply line, the
2nd Canadian Army under the command of LieutenantGeneral Guy Simonds was assigned to the task of securing
the Scheldt Estuary
The Scheldt Con’t
• After five weeks of difficult
fighting, the First Canadian Army
with support from other countries
was successful in securing the
Scheldt Estuary
• It took numerous amphibious
assaults, crossing of canals, and
fighting over open ground.
• Both land and water were mined,
and the Germans defended their
retreating line with artillery and
snipers.
• The Allies finally cleared the port
areas on November 8, but at a
cost of 12,873 Allied casualties
(killed, wounded, or missing),
half of them Canadians.
The Battle of the Bulge
• The Ardennes Offensive
known to the general public as
the Battle of the Bulge,
started on December 16, 1944
• Three powerful German armies
plunged into the semimountainous, heavily forested
Ardennes region of eastern
Belgium and northern
Luxembourg.
• Their goal was to reach the
sea, trap four allied armies,
and impel a negotiated peace
on the Western front.
The Battle of the Bulge
• Thinking the Ardennes was
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the least likely spot for a
German offensive the line
was thin with American
manpower concentrated
north and south of the
Ardennes.
Even though the German
Offensive achieved total
surprise, the American troops
did not give ground without a
fight
Within three days the
Americans, assisted by the
arrival of powerful
reinforcements insured that
the Germans would not
achieve their goal.
Battle of the Bulge Outcome
• The German losses in the
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battle were critical
The last of the German
reserves were now gone
The Luftwaffe had been
broken
The German Army in the
West was being pushed back.
Most importantly, the Eastern
Front was now ripe for the
taking and the German Army
was unable to halt the Soviets
German forces were sent
reeling on two fronts and
never recovered.
The Final Days
• In April 1945, the battle
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is coming to a close.
On the 30th April, Hitler
commits suicide together
with his mistress Eva
Braun hours after they
were married.
Hitler gave strict orders
for his body to be burned,
so that his enemies
wouldn't do what they
had done to Mussolini,
who was publicly
displayed hanging upside
down.
The Soviets Arrive – Berlin Falls
• By 2 May, the Reichstag,
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the old German
parliament falls and Berlin
surrenders to Marshall
Zukhov, who receives the
honour of being the
conqueror of Berlin.
The battle for Berlin cost
the Soviets over 70,000
dead. Many of them died
because of the haste with
which the campaign was
conducted.
VE-Day
• The major Allied ground
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offensive from the west
against German territory
began on 8 February 1945
In April, Canadian troops
liberated most of the
Netherlands
The Germans formally
surrendered on 8 May 1945,
known as Victory-in-Europe,
or ‘V-E’ Day
http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=sizo0APsLkY