The End of World War Two

D-Day and the Normandy Invasion

Planning Allies realized landing on the

far side of the channel at a place called Pas de Calais (where it would closest to France ) would be impossible. Therefore they picked Normandy as their landing site.

Allies deceived Germans in thinking that they were landing in Pas de Calais. Germany place the bulk of its forces there.

Allies were able to swarm Britain with ample supplies and men now that they had the ability to fend off the German U-boats.

Allied forces were under the command of the Supreme Commander General Dwight Eisenhower

•The invasion was code named Operation Overlord

•It was a huge and complicated plan. Every detail was vital to success

The Plan

Invasion PlanAmerican and British paratroopers were dropped off inland of the

assigned beaches. This was to suffocate a major counter account from the Germans by seizing roads, bridges and railways. All beaches were heavily bombed to soften defenses.

Largest armada in the world’s history gathered around the beaches and bombarded them before the deployment of the infantry

Americans sent 3 soldier divisions at beaches code named Utah and Omaha

British sent 2 soldier divisions at beaches code named Gold and Sword

Canadians sent 1 soldier division to the beach code named JunoOmaha was the bloodiest battle out of all the landing sites.

Americans on Omaha beach were faced against the tough Nazi veterans from the 352nd infantry division. The beach was the most fortified out of the five beaches with large stone cliffs offering defense for the Germans bunkers and artillery. Initial landings suffered heavy casualties

Sword suffered low casualties, but Gold was hit fairly hard due to a fortified village near the beach

Juno BeachHad the second highest casualty rate (second to

Omaha) at 961Canadians first wave of soldiers consisted of the 3rd

Canadian Infantry Division and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Division ( more than 21,400 soldiers)

The objective was to capture the Caen-Bayeux road and the Carpiquet aerodrome.

In the beginning, the assault looked like a disaster. Juno was well defended. Canadian front lines were met with a hail of machine guns and mortars destroying landing crafts and tanks. But it later turned around as more numbers were unloaded.

Despite the tough German defenses the Canadians made the largest advance at D-Day of any of the other beaches, yet they still fell just short of their objective.

Top Left: loading the landing craft heading for Juno

Bottom left: Landing at Juno

Top Right: Unloading Supplies

ResultsOperation Overlord was a success!Allies now had a foothold on Europe.

This allowed huge the Allies to flood France with supplies and men.

This sparked the end of Germany’s unchallenged control of Western Europe.

By July, the Allies had over one million soldiers entrenched in France.

The Allies Advance into Europe

The battle into France was slow, it took almost a month to take Caen, a city in Normandy which was supposed to have been taken within 24 hours of D-Day

Paris was taken in late August without a fight

By winter, the Allies were approaching the border with Germany

They bomb many German cities to rubble such as Dresden and Hamburg

Canada liberates the NetherlandsWhile the USA and Britain were advancing east,

Canada was given directions to advance north and liberate the Netherlands (aka Holland) from the Germans

Many Dutch people were starving because Germany cut off their rations to the Dutch

During the winter of 1944-1945, Germany launched one last counter attack called the Battle of the Bulge where they nearly broke American lines and split American and British forces

The Canadians entered and liberated the Netherlands in April 1945 at a cost of 6,300 dead

From there, they headed into Germany, meeting the Red Army on the Baltic coast on late April

The Eastern FrontThe Soviet Union stormed

through eastern Europe at great cost of life to both sides

In January 1945, they crossed the Oder River into Germany

They then fought an extremely difficult battle for Berlin, losing 300,000 soliders

Soviet Marshall Zhukov was not concerned with human life

Italian FrontIn April 1945, the

Allies broke through in Italy

The Germans surrendered

Italian partisans captured Mussolini while he was attempting to escape Italy

He was hung from a gas station in Milan

DownfallHitler committed suicide on April 30th 1945

after ordering the destruction of his peopleGerman command fell to Admiral Dontiz,

who surrendered on May 7th 1945 (V.E. Day)

The Soviets ran amok in Germany to take revenge on the devastation of their country

They permitted murder, looting and rapingEstimates of German women raped range

from 10,000 to 2 millionIn eastern Germany, there was also incidents

of Ethnic Cleansing, as the Soviets and local inhabitants sought to remove the German presence from their area

The fall of JapanJapan began to lose

ground on all fronts in 1945

The Americans began bombing Japanese cities100,000 people died

during the Tokyo firebombing

The decision was made to drop the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Americans estimated they would receive 1 million deaths if they invaded Japan

The Atomic BombThe Atomic bombs were part of the Manhattan

Project to develop a nuclear weaponMost of the work was done in the deserts near Los

Alamos, New Mexico, USA. The Uranium was from Canada

Many of the scientists involved were Jewish refugees from Europe

They wanted to develop a bomb to drop on Germany before the Germans completed a bomb themselves

The A Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6th 1945 at a cost of 70,000 dead civilians

The Americans nuked Nagasaki on August 9th when Japan did not surrender

Japan then surrendered

1.1 Million servicemen 46,000 deaths

Canada ended the war with the worlds fourth largest army,

fourth largest airforce and third largest navy