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Chapter 24: The World War II Era

Phase 4: Allied Victory

Key Points

• The United States, Great Britain, and Canada launched the largest land invasion in history on June 6, 1944 at Normandy, France. This assault, known as D-Day led to the liberation of France and the eventual surrender of the Axis.

• Using superior air forces, the Allies defeated Germany’s final attempt to stop their invasion of their homeland at the Battle of the Bulge.

• President Harry Truman used the Atomic Bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring a quicker and more decisive end to the war in the Pacific.

The Invasion of Italy

1. After the defeat of the Axis in North Africa, the Allies planned their invasion of the

European mainland. They decided that Italy was the best place for an invasion.

2. The Allies had 3 main objectives; overthrow Mussolini and take Italy out of the war,

establish a second front in France, and take pressure of Russia by forcing Germany to

turn south in defense of their ally Italy.

3. On July 10, 1943, 3 American, 1 Canadian, and 3 British divisions landed in Sicily. They

pushed across the island from beachheads on the south coast in five weeks, against 4

Italian and 2 German divisions, and overcame the last Axis resistance on August 17.

4. In the meantime, Mussolini had been stripped of power, and the Italian government had

entered into negotiations that resulted in a secret armistice signed on September 3.

5. Allied forces took Sicily in August, and by September had reached Cassino, located

on the coast south of Rome. There, the Germans established a strong defensive zone,

called the Gustav Line. From November 20, 1943 to January 5, 1944, the Allies attacked

the zone, making little progress.

6. The Allies did not break through the Gustav Line until May of 1944. Harsh fighting

continued from Rome to Bologna in the North until April 21 of 1945. On April 25, the

Allies crossed the Po River and captured Verona. Mussolini was captured trying to escape

the country disguised as a German soldier and was executed on April 28. The next day

the Germans surrendered in Italy, and a week later the entire war in Europe was over.

The Normandy Invasion (D-Day/Operation Overlord)

1. By 1944, the Germans knew that the Allies, also now including the United States, among

others, would attempt an invasion of France to liberate Europe from Germany. The Allied

forces, based in Britain, decided to begin the invasion by landing a huge army at a place

called Normandy Beach, which is located on the northwest coast of France.

2. Code-named "Operation Overlord", and commanded by American General Dwight D.

Eisenhower, the Allies landed on June 6, 1944 at five beaches in the Normandy area with

the code names of: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. Prior to the actual amphibious

invasion, Allied planes pounded the Nazi defenders and dropped thousands of para-

troopers behind German lines the night before the seaborne landings.

3. The German resistance was strong, and the footholds for Allied armies were not nearly as

good as they had expected, but 156,000 American, British and Canadian troops were

able to punch inland, securing safe landing zones for reinforcements.

4. The powerful counterattack with which Hitler had proposed to throw the Allies off the

beaches never materialized. Enormous Allied air superiority over northern France made it

difficult for Rommel to move his limited reserves. Hitler was convinced that the Allied

landing was coming somewhere else and he refused to supply Normandy with the

necessary reinforcements.

5. The German failure to successfully defend the Normandy area from the Allied liberation

forces in essence doomed Hitler's dream of a Nazi controlled "Fortress Europe" and

marked the beginning of the end for Germany. By the end of June, Eisenhower had

850,000 men and 150,000 vehicles ashore in Normandy.

6. The exact number of men on both sides who died that day will probably never truly be

known. The most recent statistics site at least 4400 Allied killed and another 6,000

wounded, while the Germans suffered between 4,000 and 9,000 total casualties on

D-Day. By the end of the entire Normandy Campaign, nearly 425,000 Allied and German

troops were killed, wounded, or missing.

The Plot Against Hitler

A group of German officers and civilians concluded in July that getting rid of Hitler offered the last remaining chance to end the war before it swept onto German soil from two directions. On July 20 they tried to kill him by placing a bomb in his headquarters in East Prussia. The bomb exploded, wounding a number of officers—several fatally—but inflicting only minor injuries on Hitler. Afterward, the Gestapo hunted down everyone suspected in the plot. One of the suspects was Rommel, who committed suicide. Hitler emerged from the assassination attempt more secure in his power than ever before.

The Battle of the Bulge

1. (Winter 1944-45) The Battle of the Bulge was the last major Nazi offensive against the

Allies in World War Two. It was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in

their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves.

2. The Battle of the Bulge started on December 16th 1944. Hitler was convinced that the

Allied alliance in western Europe was not strong enough to withstand a major attack.

Therefore, he ordered a massive attack against what were primarily American forces.

3. The attack was first known as the Ardennes Offensive but because the initial attack by

the Germans created a bulge in the Allied front line, it has become more commonly

known as the Battle of the Bulge.

4. The battle started with a two hour bombardment of the Allies lines that was followed by a

huge armored attack. The Allies were surprised by the attack because they had received

little intelligence that such an attack would take place.

5. Before the attack, English speaking German soldiers dressed in American uniforms went

behind the lines of the Allies and caused havoc by spreading misinformation, changing

road signs and cutting telephone lines. Those who were caught were shot after a court

martial.

6. The weather was also in Hitler’s favor. Low cloud and fog meant that the superior air

force of the Allies could not be used against German tanks, especially the RAF Typhoons

or the U.S. Mustang fighters.

7. The success of the Germans lasted just two days. Despite punching a bulge into the Allies

front line, the Germans could not capitalize on this. The Germans had based their attack

on a massive armored onslaught. However, such an attack required fuel to maintain it

and the Germans simply did not have enough.

8. By December 22nd, the weather started to clear, thus allowing the Allies to bring their air

power into force and on the following day, the Americans started a counter-attack

against the Germans.

9. On Christmas Eve, the Allies experienced the first ever attack by jet bombers. Sixteen

German Me-262’s attacked rail yards in an attempt to upset the ability of the Allies to

supply themselves. However, without fuel for their armored vehicles, any success in the

air was meaningless.

10. The Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle fought by the Americans in World War

Two. 600,000 American troops were involved in the battle. The Americans lost 81,000

men while the Germans lost 100,000 killed, wounded and captured.

The German Surrender

1. Hitler decided to await the end in Berlin, where he could still operate what was left of his

army. Most of his political and military associates left the capital for places in Germany

out of the Soviet reach. On the afternoon of April 30 Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin

bunker. As his last significant official act, he named Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz to succeed

him as chief of state.

2. Doenitz had been loyal to Hitler but had no course other than to surrender. His

representative, Gen. Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditional surrender of all German

forces at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims early on May 7. By then the German forces

in Italy had already surrendered, as had those in Holland, north Germany, and Denmark.

The U.S. and British governments declared May 8, VE Day (Victory in Europe Day).

Iwo Jima

1. While the final assault on Japan awaited reinforcements from Europe, the island-hopping

approach march continued, first, with a landing on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945.

2. The capture of Iwo Jima was part of a three-point plan the Americans had for winning the

war in the Far East. First, was to retake Burma and continue island hopping, second, was

to destroy Japan’s merchant fleet in order to cut off supplies to the mainland, and third,

to destroy the remainder of Japan’s industrial bases.

3. Iwo Jima is a very small Pacific island – just over 4.5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide which

lies south of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Despite its size, Iwo Jima was

considered to have great tactical importance. There were two airfields on the island –

under Japan’s control; they could be used by Japanese fighter planes to attack American

bombers on their flights to Japan. Under American control, the airfields could be used as

emergency landing bases for damaged airplanes in the bombing raids. They could also be

used for American fighter planes to escort the bombers, as they needed smaller runways

for take-off.

4. Knowing that the island was of such importance, the Japanese were determined to keep

control of it, but had very limited resources. On the other hand, America had vast

reserves at their disposal. Iwo Jima was ‘softened up’ by bombing raids for more than

two months before the actual amphibious assault. For three days prior to the attack, six

American battleships had launched a continuous barrage on the island.

5. On the first day of the landings, marines took heavy casualties, as the American

bombings had not been effective. The bombings had destroyed much of the beach and

inland areas, giving the Japanese far more opportunities to find hiding-holes for snipers.

However, the Americans had cut the island in two by the end of the first day – despite

taking over 2,400 casualties.

6. On Day 2, the Marines attacked Mount Suribachi. Here they found fanatical Japanese

defense and Suribachi was taken on February 23rd after three days of fighting.

7. Iwo Jima proved a difficult and bloody target to take – frequently the Americans only

advanced at several hundred meters per day. By March 11th, the Japanese were trapped

in an area around Kitano Point, the island’s most northern extremity. By March 16th, the

island was declared secure and all resistance had ceased by March 26th.

8. The tiny island had taken America over one month to conquer. The Marines lost 6,891

men killed and 18,070 wounded. Out of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island, only

212 were taken prisoners. The Battle of Iwo Jima showed Americans how far the

Japanese would go to defend their country – a decision that was to influence the use of

the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Atomic Bombs & the Surrender of Japan

1. The next attack was scheduled for Kyushu in November 1945. An easy success seemed

unlikely. The Japanese had fought practically to the last man on Iwo Jima, and hundreds

of soldiers and civilians had jumped off cliffs at the southern end of Okinawa rather than

surrender. Kamikaze planes had sunk 15 naval vessels and damaged 200 off Okinawa.

2. The Kyushu landing was never made. Throughout the war, the U.S. government and the

British, believing Germany was doing the same, had maintained a massive scientific and

industrial project to develop an atomic bomb. The chief ingredients, fissionable uranium

and plutonium, had not been available in sufficient quantity before the war in Europe

ended. The first bomb was exploded in a test at Alamogordo, N.Mex., on July 16, 1945.

3. Two more bombs had been built, and the possibility arose of using them to convince the

Japanese to surrender. President Harry S. Truman decided to allow the bombs to be

dropped because, he said, he believed they might save thousands of American lives.

4. For maximum psychological impact, they were used in quick succession, one over

Hiroshima on August 6, the other over Nagasaki on August 9. These cities had not

previously been bombed, and thus the bombs’ damage could be accurately assessed.

5. U.S. estimates put the number killed in Hiroshima between 66,000 and 78,000 and in

Nagasaki at 39,000. Japanese estimates gave a combined total of 240,000. The USSR

declared war on Japan on August 8 and invaded Manchuria the next day.

6. On August 14, Japan announced its surrender, which was not quite unconditional because

the Allies had agreed to allow the country to keep its emperor. The formal signing took

place on September 2, in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship Missouri. The Allied delegation

was headed by Gen. MacArthur, who became the military governor of occupied Japan.

Cost of the War

World War II’s basic statistics qualify it as by far the greatest war in history in terms of human and material resources expended. In all, 61 countries with 1.7 billion people, three-fourths of the world’s population, took part. A total of 110 million persons were mobilized for military service, more than half of those by three countries: the USSR (22–30 million), Germany (17 million), and the U.S. (16 million). For the major participants the largest numbers on duty at any one time were as follows: USSR (12,500,000); U.S. (12,245,000); Germany (10,938,000); British Empire and Commonwealth (8,720,000); Japan (7,193,000); and China (5,000,000).

Most statistics on the war are only estimates. The war’s vast and chaotic sweep made uniform record keeping impossible. Some governments lost control of the data, and some resorted to manipulating it for political reasons.

A rough consensus has been reached on the total cost of the war. In terms of money spent, it has been put at more than $1 trillion, which makes it more expensive than all other wars combined. The human cost, not including more than 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust who were indirect victims of the war, is estimated to have been 55 million dead—25 million of those military and 30 million civilian.

Economic Statistics

The U.S. spent the most money on the war, an estimated $341 billion, including $50 billion for lend-lease supplies, of which $31 billion went to Britain, $11 billion to the Soviet Union, $5 billion to China, and $3 billion to 35 other countries. Germany was next, with $272 billion; followed by the Soviet Union, $192 billion; and then Britain, $120 billion; Italy, $94 billion; and Japan, $56 billion. Except for the U.S., however, and some of the less militarily active Allies, the money spent does not come close to reflecting the war’s true cost. The Soviet government has calculated that the USSR lost 30 percent of its national wealth, while Nazi exactions and looting were of incalculable amounts in the occupied countries. The full cost to Japan has been estimated at $562 billion. In Germany, bombing and shelling had produced 4 billion cu m (5 billion cu yd) of rubble.

Human Losses

The human cost of the war fell heaviest on the USSR, for which the official total, military and civilian, is given as more than 20 million killed. The Allied military and civilian losses were 44 million; those of the Axis, 11 million. The military deaths on both sides in Europe numbered 19 million and in the war against Japan, 6 million. The U.S., which had no significant civilian losses, sustained 292,131 battle deaths and 115,187 deaths from other causes. The highest numbers of deaths, military and civilian, were as follows: USSR more than 13,000,000 military and 7,000,000 civilian; China 3,500,000 and 10,000,000; Germany 3,500,000 and 3,800,000; Poland 120,000 and 5,300,000; Japan 1,700,000 and 380,000; Yugoslavia 300,000 and 1,300,000; Romania 200,000 and 465,000; France 250,000 and 360,000; British Empire and Commonwealth 452,000 and 60,000; Italy 330,000 and 80,000; Hungary 120,000 and 280,000; and Czechoslovakia 10,000 and 330,000.

Perhaps the most significant casualty over the long term was the world balance of power. Britain, France, Germany, and Japan ceased to be great powers in the traditional military sense, leaving only two, the U.S. and the Soviet Union.  

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