The War in North Africa and the Pacific

Churchill and FDR meet again. A few weeks after Pearl Harbor, Churchill visited FDR in Washington and convinced him that focusing on Europe first (instead of Japan) would be the most advantageous. The plan was to get Germany to fight a “War on Two Fronts,” meaning they would be fighting on both their East and West borders.

Soviets Engage the Germans in the East. The Germans were successful at first, marching their troops all the way to Stalingrad, and industrial city that was key to the Soviet economy. They controlled about 80% of the city when winter set in in 1942. The Soviet Army encircled the city and trapped the Germans inside Stalingrad. The Germany army essentially starved and froze to death until they surrendered. This was a huge turning point.

Stalin’s request, Churchill and FDR’s response. While the Battle of Stalingrad was raging, Stalin was trying to get the English and Americans to invade France via the English Channel. Neither FDR nor Churchill believed this could be done (in 1942), so they decided to open up the second front via North Africa. In November of 1942 Allied troops landed and steadily pushed the Germans out of North Africa and back into Italy. By the Spring of 1943 they had complete control of North Africa.

The Italian Campaign At this point, America was ready to try the English Channel invasion, but Churchill wanted to attack Italy first. It didn’t take long to get rid of Mussolini, by the summer of 1943 he was stripped of his power by the King due to the heavy losses of the Italian army. He was arrested, and eventually executed two years later.

The War in the Pacific Even though we say the Nazi’s are our first priority, that doesn’t mean we ignore the Japanese. We start fighting back against them immediately. Douglas Macarthur led 800,000 troops to defend the Philippines. It didn't work and they were all captured. This led to the Bataan Death March.

Battle of the Coral Sea This was a successful operation for the Ameircans and the Australians that atopped the advancement of the Japanese towards Australia.

Battle of Midway We broke the Japanese code and leanred they were going to attack Midway Island, North of Hawaii. We send bombers to surprise attack them and scored a huge vicory. It was similar in scope to the Pearl harbor attacks.

“Island Hopping” Most of the war in the Pacicific was spent hopping from island to island, fighting the enemy. We were trying to take as many islands as possible. Our goal was to stange a huge invasion of Japan. To do that we would need a lot of islands to put our bases on.