Transcript The War for Europe

The War for Europe
Major American Battles of the
European Theater
1. North Africa

Operation Torch - Plan
to attack periphery
(edges) of German
empire
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Give soldiers
experience fighting
Germans
Egypt’s Suez Canal –
shipping supplies
 Americans Eisenhower
and Patton start in
Morocco and head east
while British forces
head west from Egypt

Surround “Afrika Korps” led by Erwin Rommel, the
“Desert Fox”
 May 13, 1943 – German forces surrender
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2. Battle of the Atlantic
Problem:
 German submarines (wolfpacks) and
Luftwaffe wreaking havoc in Atlantic.
 Germans sank 360 American ships along
the American coast by August 1942.
 Unprotected American ships prove to be
easy targets.
Solution:
 Convoy system
used with the help
of sonar, radar, and
depth charges.
Allies are
destroying U-boats
faster than they
can replace them.
 U.S. building 140
ships/month by
1943.
 May, 1941- the
sinking of the
Bismarck and the
British find the
German Enigma
encoding machines
and code books.
3. Battle of Stalingrad
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German goals: seize the oil in the Caucasus
Mountains and take Stalingrad.
Problems: oil fields were hundreds of miles away
and the Russian winter set in.
Operation Uranus (1942): Russian army
surround over 250,000 Nazi soldiers. 90,000
captured, while the others are killed (only 5,000
captured survived).
Soviets lose 1.2 million soldiers and civilians.
Major turning point in war for Allies.
4. Italian Campaign
 “Soft
underbelly of Europe”
 Operation Husky- Roosevelt and Churchill
agree to launch an Italian invasion through
the island of Sicily in 1943.
 The problem is that everyone knows that
Sicily is the likely target, so they devise a
plan to make Hitler think the invasion will
take somewhere else, like the Balkans.
The Man Who Never Was
(Operation Mincemeat)
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British intelligence (MI-5)uses a corpse to convince the
Germans that the target might be Greece or the Balkans.
Need to find a body, deliver it, and make it look real.
A body later floats ashore in Spain.
It looked as if he was killed in a plane crash, dressed in a
British staff officer’s courier uniform and carrying secret
documents in a briefcase.
Spain finds the body on April 30, 1943 and it does look
legitimate- the courier has unpaid bills, a letter from
home, a movie ticket, coins and matches in his pockets.
The Spanish return the briefcase to the British who are
able to determine that it was opened.
 Spain
sends copies of documents to Hitler
who sends troops, tanks, AND ROMMEL
to the Balkans thinking of an invasion of
Greece.
 Two months later the Allies stormed into
Sicily.
 Allies
take Sicily and cross into Italy.
 Bloody battles like Anzio (55,000 dead)
ensue.
 April 28, 1945- Mussolini is discovered by
anti-fascist Italians who shoot and hang
him.
 An armistice between Italy and Allies is
signed on September 8, 1943.
5. Operation Overlord
 Goal-
to launch a major invasion force of
ships, landing craft, and 3 million troops to
attack the Axis across the English Channel
(France).
 Problem-Hitler is prepared for an invasion.
Is it possible to trick him once again?
Patton’s Phantom Army
(Operation Quicksilver)
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The Allies create a fake
invasion buildup at the
Pas de Calais, which
makes sense as it is the
shortest distance from
England.
 Create the fictional First
United States Army
Group (FUSAG), fake
radio transmissions, fake
vessels, dummy guns,
planes, inflatable tanks,
and lost documents.
 Did it work?
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June 6, 1944- 19 powerful German
divisions are guarding the Pas de
Calais.
 Tricked by inflatable tanks!!!!
D-Day – June 6, 1944
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Specific weather conditions needed
 Omar Bradley leads invasion of Omaha Beach – 2,500
Americans killed or wounded
 Invasion succeeded in the end
6. Battle of the Bulge
16, 1944 – last desperate
offensive by Hitler
 100,000 German casualties, loss of
equipment
 December
7. V-E Day
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March and April 1945, Soviet and American troops
begin to press toward Berlin
April 30, 1945 Hitler commits suicide
May 7, 1945 Germany surrendered unconditionally
May 8, 1945 – V-E Day “Victory in Europe”