Chapter 14Part 3 of 3

Pushing Back the Axis

Strategic Bombing of Germany Begins

• In 1942, Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and the U.S. Air Force started dropping an average of 3,500 tons of explosives on Germany per month.

• Roosevelt and Churchill meet in 1943 at the Casablanca Conference and agree to step up the strategic bombing of Germany

• By May of 1945, they were averaging 53,000 tons of explosives per month.

• This caused an oil shortage, destroyed the railroad system, and destroyed aircraft factories in Germany.

• From this point forward the Allies dominated the air

Invasion of Italy• Begins July 10th,1943• July 25, 1943 – Mussolini is arrested by his

King…the new gov negotiates peace with Allies• Germany takes over Northern Italy, puts

Mussolini BACK in charge, and fights to defend Rome

• January 1944 – America lands in Italy and attacks the town of Monte Cassino

• May 1944 – Germany retreats and we take Rome

• By 1945 Italy is completely under Allie control

Takes Americans 5 months to break through the German lines at the town of Cassino

Fighting at Cassino

1945 – Mussolini executed and put on display in town square

Tehran Conference• Churchill and Roosevelt wanted to meet with

Stalin before they made their next move…A FULL OUT INVASION OF EUROPE

• Met in Tehran, Iran in late 1943• Agreed that Russia would all out attack

Germany when the Allies invaded France in 1944

• They would then divide Germany after the war• Russia was also to help the US defeat Japan

Operation Overlord• This was the code name for the allied invasion of France.• General Dwight D. Eisenhower was chosen as the

commander of this operation.• 1.5 million soldiers, 12,000 airplanes, and 5 million tons of

equipment were sent to England to be used.• This invasion was nicknamed D-Day.• The date for the allied invasion was June 6th 1944.• The landing was going to happen on the French beaches

of Normandy.

Planning the Attack• Germany knew the Allies would invade along the

English Channel so they had fortified their forces their• Allies needed to surprise Germany so they develop

Operation Foritude – a deceptive plan to draw German forces away from Normandy

• Operation Fortitude South -- Pas de Calais• Operation Fortitude North – Norway• Pictures, false intelligence through the use of double

agents, treaties with Sweden, etc• Germany focused their defenses on these two areas

Inflatable Dummy Tank

Inflatable Dummy Airplane

NorthernFortitude

Southern FortitudeActual Plan

For Attack

Other Factors Needed For Invasion• 1944 --1.5 million American troops were now in

England ready to go• Still had to pick a date for the attack• Invasion Requirements:

– Had to begin at night to hide ships crossing Eng Chan.– Had to arrive at low tide to see beach obstacles– Low tide had to be at dawn so that landing troops could see– Paratroopers landing behind enemy lines needed a moonlit

night to see where to land– Most Important: Weather had to be good

D-Day• June 5 to 7 1944 fit these requirements• June 5th is the date…Men are suited up

and ready to go…the clouds appear and the mission in cancelled

• Weather improves a little the next day• Shortly after midnight on June 6th, 1944

Eisenhower gave the final order “OK, we’ll go.”

The Longest Day• 7,000 ships carrying 100,000 soldiers • 23,000 paratroopers heading east and west of

Normandy behind enemy lines• Allied fighter bombers wage war on the coast

destroying radars, bridges, bunkers, etc• 5 main beaches attacked: Utah, Omaha, Gold,

Sword, and Juno • The attack almost disintegrates at once due to

the rocky seas and Germany artillery, but the Allies eventually secure the beach

RFA pilots synchronizing watches

Omaha Beach

American troops approaching the beaches

Omaha Beach after the beach had been secured

Saving Private Ryan Videos

• Ground Troops View

Band of Brothers – D Day

• Paratroopers View

Taking Back the Pacific

• Many famous battles took place between the U.S. and Japan between 1942-1945.

1. Midway 4. Marshall Islands

2. Coral Sea 5. Guam

3. Guadalcanal 6. Okinawa • General Douglas MacArthur was responsible for

capturing Japanese strongholds in the Pacific.

Leyete Gulf• The battle of Leyte Gulf was the longest and

largest naval battle in history.• 1st time Japanese used kamikaze attacks

The Navajo Code Talkers• US would invade Japanese

islands and have their radio communications intercepted and deciphered

• Navajo Indians knew a language that had never before been written down and they became the communicators in the Pacific

• Sworn to secrecy, their mission was not revealed until 1971

Battle of The Bulge• Hitler decided to have one more major attack• Hitler tried to cut off Allied supplies coming through

Antwerp Belgium.• The attack began on December 16th 1944.• Weather during the battle was cold with six inches of

snow and was in the dense Ardennes Forest.• This attack put a bulge in the allied defense lines.• Bastogne was the key city in the battle due to the

roads that intersected there (11 mountain roads intersected at Bastogne)

• An outnumbered American unit protected Bastogne for more than a month

• Biggest single battle America has ever fought• Finally after heavy fighting the Germans began to

withdraw on Jan. 8th 1945.

The German Plan

Dead Belgium Citizens killed by Germans

Truman Becomes President• On April 12th 1945 while

vacationing in Warm Springs Georgia, FDR died of a stroke only 3 months after beginning his historic 4th term

• Vice President Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President of the U.S.

• Truman was from the state of Missouri.

Harry S Truman on becoming President:

“Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now…When they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”

Harry S Truman in WWI

V-E Day• Soviet forces raced toward Berlin from the east.• U.S. forces raced toward Berlin from the west.• April 30th 1945, Hitler committed suicide.• May 7th 1945 Germany surrendered.• May 8th 1945 was declared V-E day which

stood for Victory in Europe Day.

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Hitler with Eva Braun before they commit suicide together

Soviet soldiers in Berlin

The average German street after the war

German women washing clothes in a destroyed country

Churchill waving after peace declared

Crowds gather in London to celebrate

V E Celebration in Times Square NY

War in Europe Done…War is Asia is Not

• US invades Iwo Jima…loses 6,800 marines• It was an island only 8 miles long, but was

perfect as a strategic air base• Bloodiest battle in the Pacific but would be key

for our success against Japan

3 of these 5 marines will be dead before Iwo Jima is over

Fire bombing of Japan• Truman believes if we can end Japan’s industrial

production then they will surrender• Napalm bombs– bombs are filled with napalm

and dropped on Japan’s major industrial cities• Napalm is like jellied gasoline• The flames would grow so hot and big that it

would pull the oxygen out of the air• If civilians didn’t burn to death, then they would

asphyxiate• HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS DIED AND THEY

STILL SHOWED NO SIGNS OF SURRENDER

Our “Ace” in the Hole…

The Manhattan Project

• The American program to build an atomic bomb was code named the Manhattan Project. It was headed by Leslie R. Groves.

• The nuclear reactor was built at the University of Chicago.

• The bomb was built in Los Alamos New Mexico.• J. Robert Oppenheimer led the team in the bombs

construction.• Uranium for the bomb was purified at the Oak Ridge

National Lab in TN.• The world’s first atomic bomb was tested on July 16th

1945.

Oppenheimer and Groves after test

Dropping The Bomb• August 6th 1945 a B-29 bomber named the

Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

• The bomb was code named Little Boy.• Estimated 120,000 or more killed• August 9th a second bomb was dropped on the

city of Nagasaki.• September 2nd, 1945 Japan signed the official

surrender papers on the American battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Little Boy before being loaded into the Enola Gay

Paul Tibbets in the cock pit.Enola Gay was his mom’s name.

Hiroshima Video

Nagasaki bombing

VJ Day – Victory over Japan Day