Download War In Europe / War in Pacific

War In Europe / War in Pacific
I.
Europe
A. Casablanca Conference
1. FDR and Churchill meet to discuss unconditional surrender.
2. USSR calls for immediate help.
a. Civilian and military dead about 23 million by end of the war.
b. US lost 292,000… all military.
3. Stalin wants a 2nd front to take pressure off Stalingrad and Moscow.
4. Churchill convinces FDR to go through the “soft underbelly” of Europe (Italy) instead
of France.
a. Will affect later relations between the nations.
B. Operation Torch
1. US/Brit invasion of Northern Africa.
2. Brit wants to protect Suez Canal and its colonies.
3. “Seasons” American troops… play the JV team (Italians) before the Varsity
(Germans).
4. Take Sicily and move into Italy… majority German defenses.
a. Discuss the Germans defensive.
b. Harder to move north than was thought. (Anzio beachhead)
C. Operation Overlord
1. D-Day, 6 Jun 1944.
2. Strong German resistance, but most of German attention was focused on USSR.
a. By now, Soviets had already started pushing the Germans out of Russia on their
own.
3. Battle of the Bulge
a. Last German offensive to try to stop Allied advance, fails.
4. V-E Day… Victory in Europe 8 May 1945.
a. Hitler dead a few days before.
II.
War In Pacific
A. Early Japanese Expansion
1. Following Pearl Harbor, Japanese military had taken many islands in the Pacific.
2. Plan was to take and fortify these islands to form a protective ring around most of
the Pacific.
a. Make to too costly for America to try to take them back.
3. No real navy in Pacific able to check Japanese expansion.
4. Remember, Europe First.
5. Japanese Empire… largest in world history (square miles, mostly water)
B. Philippines
1. General MacArthur forced to sneak away in a submarine as we lose the Philippines
to the Japanese. (“I shall return”)
2. American soldiers hold out until they run out of food and ammunition can’t get
resupplied/reinforced.
3. American Army in the Philippines forced to surrender.
4. Battan Death March.
C. Midway
1. June 1942
2. Turning point battle in the Pacific.
3. Japanese lose 3 Aircraft Carriers… we lose 2.
a. We are already cranking out more ships… Japan can’t replace its loses.
b. War of attrition, we can out-produce Japan and replace our loses in materials
and manpower.
D. Island Hopping
1. Plan to march towards Japan by skipping over some heavily fortified Islands.
2. Why attack them all?
a. Let them whither on the vine.
E. Okinawa
1. Last Japanese defensive outpost before the home islands of Japan.
2. 1,900 Kamikaze attacks (Divine Wind)
3. Few soldiers surrendered, preferring suicide or blind charges into American lines to
giving up.
a. Even many civilian jumped rather than allow the Americans to take them
prisoner. (They believed the Japanese propaganda).
4. Convinces the Military and Truman that an invasion of the Home Islands of Japan
would be costly in American lives
a. Some estimate 1 million killed and wounded.
F. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1. Manhattan Project is completed. Should Truman use the bomb?
a. Other options: Blockade and starve…. Invasion.
2. Hiroshima
a. 6 Aug 45 – Enola Gay dropped atomic bomb.
b. 60,000 killed… more over the years from cancer.
3. Nagasaki
a. 9 Aug 45 – 2nd bomb dropped.
b. 35,000 killed… more later.
c. USSR also declares war on Japan.
G. V – J Day
1. 15 Sep 45, Emperor Hirohito agrees to surrender.
2. 2 Sep 45 Japan officially surrenders on deck of the USS Missouri.