Key Battles in WW2

• The savage fighting in Normandy continued throughout June and July of 1944.

• Canadian troops had a long, hard year of fighting

• They re-took Dieppe – a great celebration

From Normandy to the Netherlands

• Canadians advancing through Belgium toward the Netherlands

• People there were starving since German occupation (food drops from air)

From Normandy to the Netherlands

• Germans opened dykes that held back water to slow the Allies down

• Canadian troops found boats and kept moving

From Normandy to the Netherlands

• Germans retreated• Grateful Dutch families poured out of their homes to

welcome their liberators.• Canadian general accepted Nazi surrender in

Netherlands

Netherlands and Tulips• Another reason the Dutch love

Canadians:• Princess Juliana lived in

Ottawa with her daughters, during the war

• One daughter was born in Ottawa

• Every year, Holland sends hundreds of thousands of tulip bulbs to Ottawa in thanks for Juliana and for the liberation

Even today, Canadians are warmly received in the Netherlands.

Bomber Command

Bomber Command

• Canadian Air Force increased over war

• End war: 250,000 men and women served in RCAF

Bomber Command• Officially, after

military targets,• Realistically

inflicting terrible civilian damage –

• over 1,000,000 killed or wounded

• Greatly affected morale on both sides.

The End of the Pacific War• millions of people celebrated Victory-in-Europe (V-E) Day• Allied leaders grimly prepared for the final struggle in the Pacific• full weight of the Allied Forces would now against Japan• Canada prepared for the assault• By July 1945, nearly 80,000 Canadians volunteered to join the

Pacific forces• Canadian naval participation was also to have been impressive:

60 ships, manned by 13,500 men• the war was over before this help was needed• President Truman of the United States had made the fateful

decision to use the atomic bomb (Roosevelt died Apr. 1945)

Hiroshima

• On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, a city of over 100,000 people. The results were terrifying. A third of the city was obliterated; the rest lay in ruins.

• Three days later, a second and larger bomb totally destroyed the port of Nagasaki. The Japanese government sued for peace on the following day and, on August 14, 1945, Japan accepted the Allied terms of unconditional surrender (V-J Day). The Second World War was over.

The Second World War was finally over.