Modern U.S. History Unit3: World War II. After the invasion of D-Day and seven days of fighting, the Allies held an 80-mile strip of France. Within a.

Modern U.S. History

Unit3: World War II

Notes 8: The End of World War

II

After the invasion of D-Day and seven days of fighting, the Allies held an 80-mile strip of France. Within a month of the invasion, the Allies had landed a million troops. Operation Overlord (June 6, 1944 – August 25, 1944) was the operation that oversaw the invasion of D-Day and the next steps to conquer Paris.

Operation Overlord

Operation Overlord – afternoon of D-Day

On August 23, General Patton and his Third Army reached the Seine River at the south of Paris. Two days later on August 25, 1944, American troops and French resistance forces liberated Paris after four years of German occupation.

Operation Overlord

Operation OverlordBy September 1944,

the Allies had freed France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. This victory helped get FDR reelected for a fourth term with his new running mate –Harry S. Truman.

The Battle of the BulgeIn October of 1944, the

Allies occupied their first German town– Aachen. This caused Hitler to make a last-chance offensive. He ordered his troops to break a weak point on the Allied line and recapture the Belgian port of Antwerp. Hitler hoped to disrupt the Allied supply lines as well as splitting the American and British forces.

On December 16, 1944, eight German tank divisions broke through the American lines. The tank divisions drove 60 miles into the Allied territory, creating a bulge in the front line. Therefore, this was called the Battle of the Bulge.

The Battle of the Bulge

The US 75th in the Ardennes Forest during the Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the BulgeThis battle raged on until

January 25, 1945 when the line was pushed back until it was close to its original position. During this time, some German soldiers massacred 120 American troops by mowing them down with machine guns and pistols in a large field. On another occasion, 11 African American troops were tortured and killed by German soldiers.

The Battle of the BulgeBy the time the

battle was over, the Germans had lost 120,000 troops (dead, wounded, or captured), 600 tanks and assault guns, and 1600 planes. This proved to be too much of a loss, and after this point the Nazis were on the retreat.

During the war, Hitler had focused the German army’s attention on creating new and deadlier weapons. Originally, the research was focused on a nuclear weapon, but this was later put aside because it was considered too slow and costly. While some weapons did not work, like the vertical take-off plane, many were successful and revolutionary.

Hitler’s Secret Weapons

The V-1 Flying Bomb was created in Germany by1942. It operated on a jet-pulse engine with a gyroscopic guidance system. After initial flight problems were fixed, the V-1 was first used against England beginning in June of 1944. The V-1 had to be launched from ramps on the ground or from planes.


The British knew the V-1 was coming because of its characteristic buzzing noise, which gave it the nickname of buzz bomb. The V-1 killed over 6,000 people and injured almost 18,000 in London. British countermeasures involved sending misinformation through Double Cross to convince the Germans that they were aiming wrong.


Spitfire tips a V-1 mid-flight

Next, the Germans invented the V-2 Rocket. This was an improvement on the V-1 because it could fly faster than the speed of sound. It flew so quickly and quietly that the British did not know what hit them when the V-2 attacks began in September of 1944.


The V-2 flew so quickly on its alcohol and oxygen fuel that countermeasures were useless; thankfully by March of 1945 the Allies had captured or destroyed the V-2 launch sites. The V-2 technology and those who created it would later be brought to America and the Soviet Union to create rocket technology that would take us into space.


V-1 Rocket:“Buzz Bomb” - first guided missile - used against Allies

since June 1944

V-2 Rocket - supersoninc, first successfully fired on September

8, 1944Werner von

Braun

Hitler’s “Secret Weapons”:Too Little, Too Late!

The Holocaust

British and American forces were pushing into Germany from the West while the Soviets were making their way to Germany from the East. As the Soviets moved across Poland, they were the first to come upon the Nazi death camps in July 1944. The SS guards that ran the death camps worked feverishly to bury and burn all evidence of what happened there, but they were not fast enough.

Liberation of the Death Camps

The Soviets entered Majdanek, a death camp in Poland, and found a thousand starving prisoners, the world’s largest crematorium, and a storehouse containing 800,000 shoes. A Soviet war correspondent reported that, “this is not a concentration camp, it is a gigantic murder plant.”American troops would later come across equally horrific camps in Germany.



Selection of

Jews for work or death at Birkena

u

These death camps were a part of the Nazis’“Final Solution” for those that they felt were not as good as the Aryans. This wide scale massacre of approximately 10 million people by the Nazis is known as the Holocaust. Some of the groups that were targeted were: homosexuals, those with disabilities, anti-Nazi clergy, the Roma (gypsies), and the Jews.


An estimated 5 to 6 million Jews, including 3 million Polish Jews

Estimates place total number of Polish deaths around 5.4mill. 1.8 – 1.9 million Christian Poles and other (non-Jewish) Poles

200,000 – 800,000 Roma & Sinti (Gypsies)200,000 – 300,000 people with disabilities80,000-200,000 European Freemasons100,000 communists10,000 – 25,000 homosexual men2,500 – 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses

Estimates of those killed in the Holocaust

The anti-Semitism program of the Nazis began by forcing Jewish people into ghettoes and then concentration camps. Some Jews (and the other groups that were captured) were forced to perform slave labor at work camps. Others had medical experiments performed on them. In 1942, the Germans began widespread execution of Jews and other victims at death camps. This killing did not end until the death camps were captured by Allied troops.


End of the War in Europe

The two sides of the Allied armies were closing in on Germany by the spring of 1945. By April 25, 1945, the Soviet army had stormed Berlin. Approximately 10,000 German soldiers were left to defend the city. The Soviets captured the German Reichstag (Congress) on May 2, 1945. Small pockets of resistance continued until the official surrender on May 8, 1945. This was known as V-E Day–Victory in Europe Day – when the war in Europe was finally over.

The Fall of Berlin

The Fall of Berlin

Russian Katyusha rocket launchers fire on Berlin

The Fall of Berlin

The Red Army flew the Soviet flag from the top of the Reichstag

Soviet troops signed their names on the side of the Reichstag

The Fall of BerlinPresident Roosevelt did

not live to see this victory, he died on April 12, 1945 at his home in Warm Springs, Georgia. Vice President Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president and guided America through the victory in Europe.

Hitler had made the Füherbunker, located in Berlin, his primary base on January 16, 1945. By April 22, 1945 it seemed to those around him that Hitler had finally admitted defeat and realized that Germany would lose the war. Shortly after midnight on April 29, 1945, Hitler married his long time companion, Eva Braun. Earlier that day he had written his last will and testament.

Hitler’s Death

At approximately 2:30 pm on April 30,1945, the Soviets raised their flag over the Reichstag and Hitler and Eva Braun went into their study. Approximately an hour later, a gunshot was heard. Hitler’s valet opened the door to the study and found Eva Braun and Hitler dead.

Hitler’s Death

Braun had killed herself by ingesting a cyanide capsule. Hitler shot himself in the right temple at the same time that he had a cyanide capsule in his mouth. Following Hitler’s orders, members of Hitler’s SS bodyguards took the bodies outside, doused them with gasoline, and tried to cremate the corpses. This did not completely work, so the bodies were buried where they were later found and confiscated by the Soviets.

Hitler’s Death

Hitler’s DeathMany believe that the

public and disturbing execution of Mussolini and his mistress further encouraged Hitler to take his own life instead of being captured. Others in Hitler’s command, such as Goebbels, also killed themselves and their families.

Many groups of American troops distinguished themselves in battle during the campaign in Europe. During WW2 the United States Army was still segregated, and many of these units were among the most decorated in the war. These include:The Tuskegee Airmen: An

all-African American Squadron that helped take down the Luftwaffe in Italy and won two Distinguished unit Citations

American Heroes in Europe

The Buffaloes: Another all-African American Division – the 92nd Infantry Division that won 7 Legion of Merit awards, 65 Silver Stars, and 162 Bronze Stars for courage under fire in only 6 months

Company E of the 141st Regiment, 36th Division: An all-Chicano unit that became one of the most decorated of the war

442nd Regimental Combat Team: An all-Nisei regiment that became the most decorated unit in U.S. History

American Heroes in Europe

The End of the War in the Pacific

The last obstacle between the Allies and Japan was the island of Okinawa, which the Allies invaded in April 1945. During the invasion of Okinawa, the Japanese unleashed more than 1900 Kamikaze attacks on the Allies – 30 ships were sunk, 300 more were damaged, and 5,000 seamen were killed by the suicide pilots.

Okinawa

Kamikaze Attacks

The USS Columbia being attacked and hit by a kamikaze pilot in 1945

Fighting on Okinawa was also terrible. After the largest amphibious attack in the Pacific, the Allied forces faced fierce opposition and an enemy that would rather fight to the death than surrender – two Japanese generals performed ritual suicide instead of surrendering. By the end of the battle, June 21, 1945, over 10,000 Allied troops had been killed out of the invasion force of over 500,000. The Japanese had approximately 100,000 troops on the island and approximately 2/3 of them were killed along with approximately 140,000 civilians.

Okinawa

Okinawa

Shooting a Japanese Sniper Corsair Firing on the Japanese

The intensity of fighting at the Battle of Okinawa made the Allied commanders worry about how much worse the fighting would be once the Allies invaded Japan. Churchill predicted that the cost of invading Japan would be 1.5 million Allied lives. President Truman chose to use a newly developed weapon instead of invading Japan with troops. This new weapon was the Atomic Bomb.

The Atomic Bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The best-kept secret of the war was the development of the Atomic Bomb through The Manhattan Project. Before America entered the war, Albert Einstein had written a letter to the President warning that Germany was trying to develop an atomic weapon. FDR chose J. Robert Oppenheimer to head up a project to build an atomic weapon for America.


Branches of the Manhattan Project were hidden all over America with the original branch in Manhattan and one of the most famous branches in Los Alamos, New Mexico. At its peak, more than 600,000 Americans were involved in the project though few knew its actual purpose.


On the morning of July 16, 1945 in the middle of the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first test of the new bomb occurred.

The Atomic Bomb: Trinity Test

.025 seconds 10 seconds 15 seconds

Less than a month later, on August 6, 1945, a bomber named the Enola Gay released the Atomic Bomb Little Boy over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Forty-three seconds later, almost every building had collapsed into dust from the force of the blast.


Hiroshima

Model of Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima

Aftermath of Hiroshima

Hiroshima Before and After

Japan still did not surrender and a second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped three days later on Nagasaki. By the end of the year approximately 200,000 people had died as a result of injuries and radiation poisoning.


Nagasaki

Mushroom Cloud over Nagasaki ( L )Nagasaki Before and After ( R )

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Burn victim ( L )Map of Atomic Bomb Sites ( R )

Nuclear Shadows

Emperor Hirohito, who had not been running Japan’s military, was horrified by the destruction to his people and ordered the military leaders to end the war. The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945, which was then celebrated as V-J Day (Victory over Japan). On September 2, 1945, formal surrender took place on the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. World War II was over.

The Japanese Surrender

Modern U.S. History Unit3: World War II. After the invasion of D-Day and seven days of fighting, the Allies held an 80-mile strip of France. Within a.

Documents

bulge slide

midflight slide

african american troops

german soldiers

american lines

troops dead

german tank divisions

allied line