Transcript America and WWII: The War for Europe and North

America and WWII:
The War for Europe and
North Africa
U.S. & Britain Join Forces
 Prime Minister Winston Churchill and FDR meet on
December 22, 1941 to plan the war
 #1 Allied Priority: The Defeat of Germany
 FDR always considered Hitler #1 enemy of the U.S.
 Stalin (now an Allied Power) was desperate for help
 Only after Germany was defeated could the U.S. look to
Britain and the Soviet Union for help in defeating Japan
U.S. & Britain Join Forces
 Also decided they
would only accept the
UNCONDITIONAL
surrender of the Axis
Powers
What would be the
positives and negatives
to this decision?
Battle of the Atlantic
 After Pearl Harbor Hitler ordered submarine raids on
America’s East Coast
 1st four months  87 U.S. ships sunk
 After 7 months  681 Allied ships sunk
 Allies used the convoy system to protect the ships  used
destroyers with sonar to detect U-boats
 With sonar the Allies destroyed U-boats faster than Germany
could replace them
 U.S. went on a crash ship-building program  140 ships/mo.
 By mid-1943 the Allies were winning the war in the Atlantic
Battle of Stalingrad
 Summer 1943  Allies began to see some victories
 German advance had stalled short of Leningrad and Moscow
 Hitler changed tactics:
 1. Seize rich oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains
 Capture Stalingrad, a major industrial city
 A brutal 3 month battle ensued with the Germans advancing
house-by-house in brutal hand combat
 End of Sept. 1943  9/10th of Stalingrad was German
controlled
Battle of Stalingrad
 November 1943, Soviets launched a massive
counterattack
 Fighting continued into the winter  German soldiers
froze/starved on the Russian frozen wasteland
 Feb. 2, 1943 the Germans surrendered
 239,000 German soldiers died
 1,250,000 Soviet soldiers and civilians died
 Despite the death toll, this was a major turning point in
the war in the east  Soviets pushed farther and father
west toward Germany
The North African Front
 U.S. and Britain opened
a second front during
the Battle of Stalingrad
 Launched Operation
Torch in Axis controlled
N. Africa
 This was led by General
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The North African Front
 November 1942, 107,000 troops
landed in North Africa
 With the British also in pursuit,
the Allies sped eastward chasing
Hitler’s Afrika Korps led by
General Erwin Rommel
 After months of heavy fighting the
last of the Afrika Korps
surrendered in May 1943
 Next step: Italy!
The Italian Campaign
 Italy was considered the “soft underbelly of the Axis”
 Allies quickly captured Sicily (summer 1943)
 Italians were tired of war  July 25, 1943 King Victor
Emmanuel III strips Benito Mussolini of power 
Mussolini arrested  Italians celebrated
 Hitler then seizes control of Italy and reinstalls Mussolini
as its leader
 After 18 months of fighting the Allies are able to drive
the Germans from Italy
The Italian Campaign
 Worst battle was
near Rome 
“Bloody Anzio”
 Lasted 4 months
 25,000 Allies died
 30,000 Axis soldiers
died
 50,000 Italians
partisan fighters
assisted the Allies
Allies Liberate Europe
 General Eisenhower
organized Operation
Overlord  planned
invasion of Hitler’s fortress
in Europe
 Allies had been planning
for over two years and
building an invasion force
of over 3 million troops to
cross the English Channel
D-Day: June 6, 1944
 Three divisions parachuted down behind German enemy
lines during the night
 British, American, and Canadian troops fought their way
ashore at five points along a 60-mile stretch of beach
 D-Day numbers:




156,000 troops
4,000 landing craft
600 warships
11,000 planes
 Largest land-air-sea operation in history
D-Day: June 6, 1944
 German fortresses bombed and shelled by air and sea
bombardment  Allies still faced brutal retaliation from the
German forces, Omaha Beach was the worst
 Allies were able to hold the beachhead
 Within a month they had landed:
 1,000,000 troops, 567,000 tons of supplies, 170,000 vehicles
 July 25th: General Omar Bradley launched an air attack at St.Lo General Patton advances with troops
 August 23rd they reach the Seine River, two days later Paris
was liberated
Battle of the Bulge
 By September 1944  France, Belgium, Luxembourg,
and most of the Netherlands had been liberated
 October 1944  Americans captured the first German
town Aachen
 Surprise counterattack by the Germans  broke through
the 80 miles of Allied troops
 The resulting dent from the desperate last-ditch
offensive was nicknamed the “Battle of the Bulge”
Battle of the Bulge
 The battle lasted for a month (Dec. 1944 – Jan. 1945)
 The Germans were pushed back and little seemed to
have changed
 However, the Germans had lost 120,000 troops, 600
tanks and assault guns, and 1,600 planes
 These weapons and men could not be replaced
 Germans could do little except retreat
Liberation of the Death Camps
 Allies were pushing
eastward towards
Germany, Soviets were
pushing westward across
Poland
 Soviet troops were the
first to come across the
death camps in July 1944
 Majdanek was the first
killing center they came
across
Unconditional Surrender
 By April 1945, the Soviet Army had stormed Berlin
 Soldiers deserted rapidly but were shot or hanged on
sight
 Hitler was in his underground Berlin bunker  in his
final written address he blamed the Jews for starting
the war and his generals for losing it
 Committed suicide by shooting himself  his body and
his wife’s were carried outside, soaked in gasoline, and
burned (Hitler’s orders)
Unconditional Surrender
 One week later General
Eisenhower accepted the
unconditional surrender
of the Third Reich
 May 8, 1945 the Allies
celebrated V-E Day –
Victory in Europe Day
 The first part of the war
was finally over…