Section 3 – War in Africa and Europe America is drawn into the war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Millions of Americans enlisted, millions more were drafted.

Under the Selective Service Act of 1940, all men between the ages of 21 and 35 had to register for military service.

North Africa

The Allies first went to North Africa to drive the Germans out and gain control of the Mediterranean.

They needed to open an invasion route through Italy.

The Allies also needed to maintain control of the Suez Canal -It was the shortest sea route to Asia and the Middle Eastern oil fields.

El Alamein The Germans were led by General Erwin Rommel (“the Desert Fox”) - he was the commander of the Afrika Korps.

The British forces were commanded by Lieutenant-General Bernard L. Montgomery and Field Marshall Harold Alexander

El Alamein is in north Africa, 150 miles west of Cairo. (or 60 miles west of Alexandria)

At El Alamein the British were able to stop Rommel’s

advance and force the German’s to retreat.

This was a turning point for the Allies. It ended Axis hopes of taking control of the Suez Canal and gaining access to the oil fields of the Middle East.

Europe

The Allies forced the Germans out of Sicily

and then swept into Italy.

The Italians had turned on Mussolini, and

the new government surrendered to the

Allies in September of 1943.

Stalingrad

Sept. 1942 – the Germans attack Stalingrad, an important industrial center in the Soviet Union.

Soviet Army vs. Germans and Italians

The battle for the city descended into one of the most brutal in World War II. Individual streets were fought over using hand-to-hand combat. The Germans took a great deal of the city but they failed to fully assert their authority. Areas captured by the Germans during the day, were re-taken by the Russians at night.

Cut off from their supplies, thousands of Nazi soldiers starved to death or froze to death.

Feb. 1943 – the Germans surrender.

Stalingrad was a turning point of the war

- The failure of the German Army was nothing short of a disaster.

- they lost a complete army group and 91,000 Germans were taken prisoner.

-they lost a massive amount of equipment

*the Germans simply did not have enough manpower to cope with the Russian advance to Germany when it came.

if German forces had taken the Soviet Union & their resources, they would have a greater fighting machine against the Allies

* Soviet troops began to push the German army west…back towards Germany.

D-Day- June 6, 1944

1944 –Allied plan was to re-take Europe and defeat Hitler’s Third Reich Code-named Operation Overlord General Dwight D. Eisenhower –>Supreme

Allied Commander Hitler ordered Field Marshal Irwin Rommel to complete Atlantic Wall (a 2,400 mile fortification --concrete bunkers, barbed wire,

tank ditches, landmines, fixed guns, beach/underwater obstacles)

Secret attack –to cross the English Channel to 50-mile stretch of Normandy coast of France Largest air, land, sea assault in history included:

175,000 men 5,333 ships/landing craft 50,000 vehicles 11,000 planes

The assault was conducted in two phases: An air assault landing of American, British, Canadian, and Free French airborne troops of 24,000 shortly after midnight

an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the coast of France starting at 6:30 AM.

There were also other attacks mounded to distract German forces from the real landing areas.

The landings took place along a 50-mile stretch of Normandy coast divided into 5 sectors:

Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

By the end of June 1944, 850,000 Allied troops had poured into France and were moving inland toward Paris, battling German troops along the way.

On August 25, the Allies liberated Paris from the Nazis.

As Allied forces advanced through Europe from the west, Soviet troops were beating back Hitler’s army in the east.

Battle of the Bulge U.S. - Dwight D. Eisenhower; Omar N. Bradley; George S. Patton ;

UK - Bernard Montgomery The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944-1945.

The surprise offensive began on December 16, 1944. 30 German divisions against Allied lines in the Ardennes region (a heavily forested area that runs through Belgium, Luxembourg, and France)

The battle started with a two hour bombardment of the Allied lines that was followed by a huge armored attack. The Germans experienced great success to start with.

However, 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.

Such an attack required fuel to maintain it and the Germans simply did not possess the quantities of fuel needed…they ran out of gas

*By December 22nd, the weather started to clear. This allowed the Allies to bring their air power into force and on the following day, the Americans started a counter-attack against the Germans.

*This was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies.

• The battle 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.

• The Americans suffered 75,000-80,000 casualties in the Battle of the Bulge, but the Germans lost 80,000 to l00,000.

• German strength had been irredeemably impaired.

• *Germany was on the Defensive by the Allies –fighting & gaining ground from both sides (East –U.S.S.R.) & (West –G. Britain/U.S.)

In February of 1945, the Big Three (Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin) met at Yalta to plan what was going to happen in Europe after the war.

In April of 1945, President Roosevelt died and Harry S. Truman succeeds him as President of the United States.

Battle of Berlin the Russians reached Berlin in April of 1945

By prior agreement, the Allied armies (positioned approximately 60 miles to the west) halted their advance on the city in order to give the Soviets a free hand Stalin unleashed the brutal power of 20 armies, 6,300 tanks and 8,500 aircraft with the objective of crushing German resistance and capturing Berlin. The depleted German forces put up a stiff defense, but ultimately succumbing to overwhelming force.

By April 24 the Soviet army surrounded the city slowly tightening its stranglehold on the remaining Nazi defenders.

Fighting street-to-street and house-to-house, Russian troops blasted their way towards Hitler's chancellery in the city's center.

The depleted German forces put up a stiff defense, but ultimately succumbed to overwhelming force.

By April 24, the Soviet army surrounded the city, slowly tightening its stranglehold on the remaining Nazi defenders.

Fighting street-to-street and house-to-house, Russian troops blasted their way towards Hitler's chancellery in the city's center. Adolf Hitler sensed the end was near, and on April 30, 1945, deep inside his air-raid bunker, committed suicide.

On May 2 the Soviet Army captured Berlin. May 7, Germany surrenders. V-E Day was Victory in Europe Day when the Allies declared Victory on May 8, 1945 and the war in Europe was finally over. As the Allies advanced toward Berlin, they discovered that there were concentration camps throughout Europe where Jews and people of other persecuted groups had been murdered. An estimated 11 million people were killed in all in the Holocaust. Hitler’s “Final Solution” to the “Jewish problem” was to murder every Jew under German rule.