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Chapter 25
Section 2: Retaking Europe
• Atlantic Charter- agreed upon by FDR
& Churchill in Aug. 1941- basis for
the United Nations.
Americans Join the Struggle
• The Battle for the Atlantic
–U-Boats were attacking US ships
headed for GB
–Allies formed convoys
–Germans countered with wolf packs
(20 U-Boats) that carried out
coordinated nighttime attacks
• After the US entered the war, U-Boats
began attacking merchant ships within
sight of the coast
• Allies used sonar to locate & attack UBoats, but the wolf packs experienced
great success
–Sank 175 in June 1942
• Allies developed better strategies & Uboat success dropped
The North Africa Campaign
• Aug 1940- British army successfully
battled Italian troops in Egypt &
Libya
• Feb. 1941- Hitler sent General Erwin
Rommel (Desert Fox) & a German
division to reinforce the Italians
• Won several battles & pushed deep
into British controlled Egypt &
threatened the Middle East
• Offensive failed in Nov. 1942 when
British Gen. Bernard Montgomery
won a decisive battle at El Alamein
• Days later, Allies landed on Morocco &
Algeria led by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower,
pushed east, while British troops chased
Rommel from Egypt
• Hitler sent 20,000 more troops to Tunisia
–Feb. 1943 Americans suffered a major
defeat trying to defend Kasserine Pass
• Early May, had the Axis force trapped in
North Africa
–240,000 Germans & Italians
surrendered
• Casablanca Conference- met in Jan. 1943
at Casablanca, Morocco
–Churchill & Roosevelt mapped out their
war strategy
–Concentrate on Europe first
Invasion of Italy
• July 1943- US 7th Army under Gen.
George Patton invaded Sicily
• Italy started to lose their faith in
Mussolini
–removed from office & arrested
• Fascist Party was disbanded, Germans
freed him & took him to northern
Italy
• Sept. 1943- Italy’s new government
surrendered
• Oct. 13- Italy declared war on
Germany
• German army in Italy continued to resist,
blocking roads & destroying bridges
• Set up Mussolini as the puppet ruler of a
fascist Italian state in northern Italy
• Jan. 1944- Allies landed behind German
lines at Anzio (35 miles south of Rome)
–Took too long to organize forces &
Germans blocked off the beach trapping
the Allies & attacked them for 4 hours
• Allies attacked Cassino & broke
through the German line & joined
forces at Anzio in May & captured
Rome
• Surrendered April 1945
–Mussolini was shot & killed as he
tried to flee
War in the Soviet Union
• The Germans advance 1941-42
–Attack began June 22, 1941
•Nearly 3.6 million Axis troops
crossed in the SU from Finland &
Romania
• Opposed by 3 million poorly trained
& badly equipped Red Army soldiers
• The Luftwaffe (German Air Force)
quickly gained control of the air &
troops drove deeper into Soviet
territory
• Ukrainians & Lithuanians welcomed
the Germans as liberators from Stalin
–Germany soon introduced forced labor
• Stalin announced that if the Army was
to retreat, destroy everything to help
the enemy
• Also asked FDR for help through the
Lend Lease Program & American aid
began to help
• By fall, Germany threatened the
capital
–Stalin urged his Allies to attack on
the western front forcing Hitler to
fight on 2 fronts
•Instead they invaded Italy
The Battle of Stalingrad
• German advance was stopped in Oct.
due to winter
• Next summer they attacked oil fields
–Red Army made a stand at
Stalingrad, a major rail & industrial
center on the Volga River
–Germany began bombing Sept. 1942
• Mid Nov.- Soviets launched a
counterattack & the Germans were
soon surrounded with few supplies
• Germany Surrendered January 31,
1943
–Germany lost more than 330,000
troops
• Turning point in the war in eastern
The Allied Air War
• RAF started carpet bombing where
planes scattered a large number of
bombs over a wide area
–Germany suffered heavy losses
• Allied bombing intensified after the
US entered the war
• Typical raid had bombs rain down on
German aircraft factories, railway
lines, ball-bearing plants, bridges, &
cities
–Aided to destroy German ability to
fight
• July 28, 1943 firebombing turned
Hamburg into a huge blaze.
The Invasion of Western Europe
• Invasion code named Operation
Overlord would be launched from
Great Britain with Gen. Dwight D
Eisenhower as supreme commander
• Massive military build up in England,
with Polish, Dutch, Belgian, & French
troops joining the Americans, British,
& Canadians
• French strengthened their forces along
the coast adding machine guns nests,
barbed wire fences, land & water
mines, & underwater obstructions
D-Day
• June 6, 1944- 4,600 invasion craft &
warships left England shortly after
midnight
• 1,000 RAF bombers pounded
German defenses at Normandy while
23,000 airborne British & American
soldiers parachuted behind enemy
lines
BEACHES OF D-DAY
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-UTAH
-OMAHA
-GOLD
-JUNO
-SWORD
• At dawn the invasion began
–Hitler hesitated to counterattack
because he feared a second, larger
invasion at the narrowest part of the
English Channel
• By late July, the Allied forces in
France numbered 2 million troops
Liberating France
• Aug.- Patton used a blitzkrieg to open
a hole in the German lines & burst out
of Normandy
• After breaking German defenses,
Patton led his army on a successful
sweep across northern France
• In Paris, an uprising started by the
French Resistance freed the city
• Aug. 25 1944, a French division
liberated Paris & Charles de Gaulle
arrived to take charge of the
government
Battle of the Bulge
• Allied attack on the Netherlands
falters at the Rhine River, while Hitler
reinforced his army
• Mid- Dec. 1944 Germany launched a
counterattack in Belgium &
Luxembourg, smashing the Allied
army, creating a huge bulge in the
Allied line
• Many small units were forced to fight
against overwhelming odds
• Allies sent troops & in a few weeks
under General Omar Bradley knocked
the Germans back
• After the battle, most Nazi leaders
recognized that the war was lost.
The War in Europe Ends
• March 1945- Gen. Bradley crossed
the Rhine River & moved towards
Berlin from the west, while the
Soviets pushed in from the east
Soviet Forces Advance
• At any given time more than 9 million
were fighting on the eastern front
–11 million Soviets & 1 million German
soldiers died
• April 1945 Soviet troops fought their way
to Berlin, destroying the city
• Eventually connected with American
troops at the Elbe River
Germany Surrenders
• Hitler choose to commit suicide
instead of fleeing the city on April 30,
1945
• May 8- Germany surrendered
–V-E day was celebrated
The Yalta Conference
• Feb. 1945
–FDR, Churchill, & Stalin met
•Plan the defeat of Germany &
decide the shape of the post war
world
–Agreed to split Germany into 4
zones each under control of the
Allies (including France)
• Planned a similar division of Berlin
• Stalin promised elections in the
nations of eastern Europe that his
army liberated from Germany & to
enter the war against Japan within 3
months of Germany’s surrender
–Stalin didn’t fulfill his promises