Transcript Fighting WWII The ETO and PTO

The ETO and PTO
Soldiers from the
2nd ''Dagger''
brigade of the US
1st Infantry Division
on a road march
during World War II.
The Basics
America enters WWII on Dec. 8, 1941
 FDR and Churchill meet in late December to
come up with a strategy to win the war

 They knew they could not fight an offensive war on
two fronts- Europe and the Pacific- at the same time
and be successful
 They decided on a strategy of “Europe First”
○ Concentrate on winning back Europe from the Axis
powers and fighting a defensive war again Japan in the
Pacific

The Axis
powers
controlled
much of
Europe and
North Africa
at the start
of 1942.
The size of
Axiscontrolled
territory
suggests
the huge
task facing
the Allies as
they
considered
strategies
for fighting
the war.
What’s Hitler been doing so far?

Axis powers already:
 Failed at conquering Britain
 Invaded Soviet Union and overtaken land along the
border
 Set their sights on Soviet’s Caucasus region
○ Why did he want this area?
 OIL!- already controlled oil fields in Romania but wanted more
 Also hoped to prevent Allies from reaching oil in Middle East
- In order to do so, Hitler must kick British troops out of Africa
(Egypt)
- Hitler sent Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps, a tank-based
German army division, to join the Italian army already in North
Africa. By June 1942, Rommel’s force had taken much of the
region and had driven deep into Egypt.
Now What?

Now that FDR and Churchill have agreed to
focus on Europe first, they must decide where
to attack
 France? The people would support the Allies, but
Germany had a very strong military force present
there making invasion very difficult
 Italy? Army was fairly weak, so would be a good
place to attack, however, sailing through the German
U-boat infested Mediterranean Sea would be bad
 North Africa? Could serve as a gateway to Europe
but was very far from ultimate goal (Germany) so
would be difficult to transfer troops/supplies
 Soviet Union? Same issues as with N. Africa
War in Europe





Also known as the ETO- European Theater of
Operations
Where do the Allies go first? North Africa!
Nov. 1942- Allies land in Morocco and Algeria, led
by general Dwight D. Eisenhower
British forces were able to defeat Rommel’s troops
and push them out of Egypt
The U.S. II Corps: under leadership of George
Patton and Omar Bradley, launched a final
offensive in May 1943. Axis resistance in the
region collapsed, leaving about 250,000 German
and Italian soldiers in the hands of the Allies.
Where do we go from here?
Italy! Allies cross Mediterranean into the island
of Sicily where they met little resistance
 The success of the invasion put a scare into
Italy’s political leaders. The Fascist Grand
Council met on July 24 and voted to restore the
king and parliament. Mussolini resigned the next
day. Italy soon surrendered to the Allies. Its
government signed an armistice in September
and declared war on Germany the next month.
 Allies success in Italy comes to an end in
October when German forces put a stop to
American advancement

The Allies
carefully
planned how
to free Europe
from Axis
control. Their
strategy called
for massive
invasions of
Axis-held
territory. The
ultimate focus
of the Allied
thrust was the
German
capital of
Berlin, where
Hitler had his
headquarters
What about the Soviet’s?
The decision to invade N. Africa had left the
Soviet’s alone to fight off the Germans
 Battle of Stalingrad: Germans set the city a blaze
and Stalin refused to retreat, but was soon
surrounded

 After two months of fighting, Soviets launched a
counteroffensive and were able to encircle the Nazi’s
 Which ever German troops weren’t frozen or starved by
January of 1943, surrendered to the Soviets and gave
up all advancements they had made in the Soviet Union
 Casualties: Germany- 200,000/ USSR- 1,000,000
Bombs Away!





When Hitler lost the USSR, he only had one source of oil leftRomania
So guess where the Allies decide to bomb?
Precision bombing- used by American pilots in B-24 Liberator
and B-17 Flying Fortress bombers to hit specific targets. Flying
at high altitude to avoid antiaircraft fire, they dropped bombs on
oil refineries, rail yards, factories, and U-boat bases. By the
end of the war, Germany’s infrastructure and economy were in
ruins.
Saturation bombing- used by British pilots to drops lots of
bombs on a large area. The strategy behind the bombing of
cities, with its appalling loss of life, was to destroy civilian
morale and force a surrender. This strategy turned German
cities like Dresden and Hamburg into rubble-strewn
graveyards, but it did not bring an early end to the war.
Bombs were dropped on a Polish oil-production facility, just
miles away from Auschwitz.
D-Freakin’-Day!

Allies wanted to launch an offensive to end the warOperation Overlord
 Eisenhower directed the invasion which consisted of 1,200 warships
800 transport ships, 4,000 landing craft, 10,000 airplanes, and
hundreds of tanks
 Plan was to cross English Channel and land in Normandy in norther
France

D-Day—the day the invasion began—was June 6, 1944.
 Eisenhower sent off his first wave of 156,000 troops
 The landing craft unloaded Allied troops on Normandy’s five
beaches, while warships provided covering gunfire from offshore.

After the chaos of the landing, the soldiers regrouped. By
the end of the first day, the Allies held the entire 59-mile
section of the Normandy coast. In July, the American army,
under General Bradley, and the British army, under General
Bernard Montgomery, began a rapid sweep across France.
In August, the Allies liberated Paris. In September, the first
American GIs crossed the German border.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Sgs5DgDhsnI&feature=related
President Ronald
Reagan later
described the DDay invasion of
France as the first
step in the Allied
attempt to “seize
back the continent
of Europe.” At
least 2,500
American, British,
and Canadian
soldiers died in
this effort. Their
sacrifices helped
turn the tide of the
war and end Nazi
hopes for world
domination.
The End is Near- at least in Europe…
As the Allies fought across France, the Soviets
were able to continue to push the Germans into
Poland
 Things came to a halt in December of 1944, when
Hitler made plans to attack the Allied lines in the
wooded Ardennes region of Belgium, where the
American forces were weakest. Eight German
armored divisions smashed into the surprised
Americans, creating a huge bulge in the American
line. Allied air support and quick action by Patton’s
Third Army forced the Germans to withdraw by
mid-January. The Battle of the Bulge was the last
German offensive on the western front
 Soviets continued to push through Poland and
reached Germany in April of 1945

Dates to Remember
April 30th- Hitler commits suicide
 May 8th- Germany surrenders, V-E Day


But FDR is not able to celebrate the Allied
victory in Europe, he died April 12th
His
VP, Harry Truman dedicated Victory in Europe
Day and its celebrations to Roosevelt's memory, and
kept the flags across the U.S. at half-staff for the
remainder of the 30-day mourning period. In doing
so, Truman said that his only wish was "that Franklin
D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day."
But Let’s Not Forget About the Pacific

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, American forces
needed months to regroup
 The japanese used this time to gain control of the regions
natural resources (oil and rubber)
 By March 1942, Japanese had captured British Hong
Kong, Singapore, Guam, Wake and the Dutch East Indies
○ Had invaded but not captured the Phillipines and Burma

The American forces in the Philippines were under
control of General Douglas MacArthur and faced
harsh resistance along with disease and malnutrition
 FDR ordered MacArthur to leave the islands, promising “I
shall return”
 Bataan Death March- round up of 70,000 American and
Filipino prisoners and forced them to march 63 miles from
Manila to a POW camp, more than 7,000 died
By mid-1942, Japan
had taken Southeast
Asia and much of
the Central and
South Pacific. Japan
even captured the
westernmost islands
of Alaska’s Aleutian
chain. In August
1943, Allied troops
finally pushed the
Japanese out of the
Aleutians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=OPlfhVEw-7U
Hornet and Doolittle
Discouraged by Japanese victories, Allies
decided to target the Japanese home islands
 FDR decided that he will launch B-25 bombers
off of the Hornet 650 miles off of the coast of
Japan

 the attack was led by pilot Lieutenant Colonel James
Doolittle, the bombers hit Tokyo and other Japanese
cities. Although the bombs did little damage, this
surprise attack thrilled Americans as much as it
shocked the Japanese. Japan reacted by putting
more precious resources into defending the home
islands. It also decided to try to destroy the remaining
American fleet, a plan that would prove disastrous.
What to do in the Pacific