Transcript The Allied Victory

Setting the Stage
0 On December 22, 1941, just after Pearl Harbor,
Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt met at the
White House to develop a joint war policy. Stalin had
asked his allies to relieve German pressure on his
armies in the east. He wanted them to open a second
front in the west. This would split the Germans’
strength by forcing them to fight major battles in two
regions instead of just one. Churchill agreed with
Stalin’s strategy. The Allies would weaken Germany on
two fronts before dealing the deathblow. At first
Roosevelt was torn, but he ultimately agreed…
The Tide Turns on Two
Fronts
0 Battle of Stalingrad:
0 Hitler sends his army to capture oil field in the Caucasas
Mountains- and to capture Stalingrad
0 Fighting begins August 23, 1942
0 Luftwaffe bomb the city to ruins
0 Stalin told his men to defend Stalingrad to the death!
0 By November of 1943 Germany controlled nearly 90% of the
city…
0 Soviet troops outside the city counter-attack and surround the
Germans
0 Cutting off supplies, the Russians force the remaining 90,000 German
troops to surrender
0 Stalin looses nearly 1 million men in the fight for Stalingrad, but
now has the Germans retreating west….
War Limits Civil Rights
0 Japanese Internment Camps:
0 After Pearl Harbor wave of racism sweeps over the
nation
0 Feb 19, 1942 Roosevelt calls for the “rounding up of
aliens” – Jap-America citizens sent to relocation camps
0 Moved to secure military locations away from the coast
0 Where they could not assist in Japanese invasions
0 Most were native born American citizens, and their parents
were Japanese….
V-E: Victory in Europe
0 D-Day Set Up:
0 Led by Dwight D. Eisenhower
0 US been landing millions of troops and supplies in GB
preparing to invade northern France
0 Germans knew attack was coming, they didn’t know
where
0 US sets up “dummy armies” near the French port of
Calais to throw off the Germans
V-E: Victory in Europe
0 D-Day:
0 June 6, 1944
0 Code-name Operation Overlord
0 Main force sent to Omaha Beach
0 Over 2,700 American soldiers alone died on the beaches that
day
0 Even with heavy loses the Allies took the beach.
0 Launching point for taking back Paris----then Berlin
0 Over a million new troops land in Normandy in one month
0 By September the Allies has liberated France and now set
their sites on Germany…..
Battle of the Bulge
0 Hitler:
0 “This battle is to decide whether we shall live or die….All
resistance must be broken in a wave of terror…”
0 Hitler attempts to split British and American forces in
two to disrupt supply lines
0 Able to break through weak American lines, but is
quickly counter attack and forced to retreat
0 Defeat at the Battle of the Bulge spells the end for
Hitler’s war machine….
Germany’s Unconditional
Surrender
0 3 million Allied troops approach Berlin from SW
0 Another 6 million Soviet troops approach from the E
0 April 25th 1945 Soviets have surrounded the city and
are bombarding it with artillery fire.
0 Hitler hiding in an underground bunker marries his
long time girlfriend Eva Braun and they commit
suicide in April 30 1945
0 May 7, 1945 Dwight D. Eisenhower accepts the
unconditional surrender of the Third Reich…the
fighting in Europe is finally over….
V-J: Victory in Japan
0 Japanese in Retreat:
0 Japanese kamikazes are biggest threat to naval victory
in the pacific
0 Suicide pilots crashed their planes into Allied ships to sink
them
0 March 1945: American Marines take the islands of Iwo
Jima and Okinawa.
0 Okinawa: 100,000 Japanese casualties 12,000 American
0 Now only 350 miles from southern Japan….
The Japanese Surrender
0 The Manhattan Project:
0 Top-Secret Project to develop the atomic bomb
0 Led by J. Robert Oppenheimer (scientist)
0 President Truman only learns about the A-bomb when
he become president
0 Bomb or No Bomb:
0 Truman believes that invasion will cost nearly 500,000
lives
0 Top advisors believe dropping the bomb is fastest way
to end war…
Japanese Surrender
0 Bombs Away:
0 Truman gives Japan warning if they do not surrender to
expect “rain of ruin from the air”
0 Japanese do not respond….
0 August 6, 1945 US drops “Little Boy” on Hiroshima
killing between 70-80,000 people
0 August 9, 1945 US drops “Fat Boy” on Nagasaki killing
another 70,000 people…
0 Japan surrenders on the USS Missouri on
September 2, 1945
0 WWII is finally over….