Transcript Victory in Europe and the Pacific 24.3

VICTORY IN EUROPE AND THE
PACIFIC
24.3
OBJECTIVES
Analyze the planning and impact of D-Day
invasion of France
 Understand how the Allies achieved final victory
in Europe
 Explore the reasons that President Truman
decided to use the atomic bomb against Japan.

KEY PARTS
Planning Germany’s Defeat
 D-Day Invasion of Normandy
 Liberation of Europe
 Advancing in the Pacific
 The Atomic Bomb Ends the War

INTRODUCTION
Read section 24.3
 Answer critical thinking questions 4&5

PLANNING GERMANY’S DEFEAT
Throughout 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin
argued over when they would start a second front
in France.
 Until they met in Iran and came up with the plan
to destroy Germany.
 They decided to take over France and march on
Germany, and they declared no power on earth
can prevent our destroying the German Army.

CONT.
The new mission was called operation Overlord.
 This was a joint operation with Canada, Britain
and the United States.
 This mission involved the most experienced
Allied officers in Europe.
 General Eisenhower was the Supreme
Commander over the entire operation.

CONT..
Operation Overlord involved landing 21
American divisions and 26 British, and small
Canadian and Polish divisions on a 50 mile
stretch of beaches.
 The fleet was the largest ever assembled in
recorded history. There were more than 4,400
ships.
 The plan dictated striking five beaches in
Normandy. (Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and
Sword)

CONT…
A major part of this plan was General George
Patton was in charge of creating a fake army.
 He had to create cardboard tanks, fake ships, and
fake radio traffic.
 The allies were trying to convince the German
army that the main attack would come at Calais
not in Normandy.
 The deception worked, Hitler moved his top tank
divisions to Calais.

CONT….
On June 6, 1944 known as D-Day the Allies hit
Germany in force.
 More than 11,000 plane prepared the way,
attempting to destroy German communication
and transportation and soften Nazi beach
defenses.
 Four of the beach heads were taken with
relatively low casualties due to light opposition.

CONT…..
But, Omaha beach was a different story, this
beach was heavily fortified and had concrete
trenches and pillboxes and heavy artillery and
minefields everywhere.
 It was the American’s job to take this beach, and
they did but at a high cost.
 As soon as their landing crafts dropped their
gates a rainstorm of bullets, shells and death
came over the soldiers.
 This became known as the “longest day.”

CONT……
For many US Soldiers it was a very short day
and their last.
 The US Soldiers fought bravely and ultimately
overcame the defenses and broke through the
lines.
 This was due to the training the Americans had
and the superior leadership of their commanders.

LIBERATION OF EUROPE
After D-Day Germany faced a two-front war.
 Rommel and a few other generals tried to
overthrow Hitler and planted a bomb in a
conference room and it exploded and killed
twenty men but Hitler was not there.
 Rommel killed himself via poison so he wouldn’t
have to go on trial.
 Hitler decided to have a massive counterattack.

CONT.
This was called the battle of the bulge, the
largest and most famous tank battle in history.
 The counter attack almost worked due to the
winter weather, the US bombers were not able to
help out the ground forces.
 But the weather cleared and US bombers
devastated the German positions.

CONT..
The Soviets began pressing from the east and US
forces from the west and US and British forces
from the south.
 Germany was now surrounded and caving in,
Hitler at this point had lost almost all control
and was a physical wreck, he was strung out on
drugs and he ended up killing himself along with
his advisors.
 Finally on May 7, 1945 Germany surrendered
and Americans celebrated V-E day. (Victory in
Europe)

ADVANCING IN THE PACIFIC
While the war was raging in Europe US Forces in
the south Pacific were making great strides, they
were taking back Island by island.
 However the Japanese were making it difficult
because they would literally fight down to the
last man and also they flew 3,000 kamikaze
missions trying to destroy US ships.
 The fiercest battles was on Iwo Jima more than
23,000 Maries died fighting this battle to take
the island.
 And the other was Okinawa this caused 50,000
Marine casualties.

CONT.
These two victories allowed full access to Japan.
 In a single night in March 1945 US B-29 bombers
destroyed 16 square mile of Tokyo and it killed
over 83,000 Japanese and injured over 100,000.
 This leads to advances in technology as well as
better troop training.

ATOMIC BOMB ENDS THE WAR
The Manhattan Project developed the A-Bomb.
 This came from scientists learning how to split
the nuclei of certain elements, and how much
energy was released when this happened.
 Albert Einstein wrote a letter that alerted
president Roosevelt about the need to proceed
with the atomic development.

CONT.
So he gave this the highest priority and gave
several billion dollars to the project.
 The two leaders of the project were General
Groves and Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
 The location of the site was Los Alamos, New
Mexico.
 Groves recruited scientist and got the materials
needed and built facilities, and maintain security
while Oppenheimer constructed the bomb.

CONT..
On July 16, 1945 in a barren are of Alamogordo
New Mexico the first atomic bomb was tested.
 The flash of light was visible 180 miles away and
the sound was heard over 100 mile away.
 Watching what occurred, Oppenheimer said,
“Now I have become death, the destroyer of
worlds.”

CONT…
On August 6, 1945 US pilots dropped an atomic
bomb on Hiroshima.
 Within two minutes 60,000 of Hiroshima’s
344,000 residents were completely obliterated.
 Three days later we dropped the second bomb on
Nagasaki killing 35,000.
 Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. This
was known as V-J day (Victroy in Japan)
 (60,000,000 people died in this war)
