Chapter 25(2)

How did the Americans help turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic?  -Organizing cargo ships into convoys  -Developed a crash shipbuilding program  1943: built 140 Liberty Ships each month/more than Germany was sinking

Why was the Battle of Stalingrad considered a turning point in the war?  The Soviets defeated the Germans and could now begin to move westward toward Germany.  Soviet Union lost 1 million soldiers  The Germans were not prepared for the freezing weather.

 Allied troops capture Sicily.  The king strips Mussolini of his power  “You are the most hated man in Italy.”  Germany decides to send troops to Italy, instead of facing the Allied troops on German soil

 An African American Air Force regiment.  Received the military’s highest honor.  Called the “Red Tails”  Trained at Tuskegee Air Force Base in Alabama

 Date: June 6 th, 1944  Involved: British, Americans, & Canadian troops  Code Name: Operation Overlord  Where: Normandy, France  Strategy: Land-sea-air operation. Deliver massive amounts of soldiers at one time  Outcome: Allies freed French Capital. Began liberation of Europe

 Germany lost so many troops and weapons that it couldn’t replace them. All it could do after this battle was retreat.  Lost:  120,000 troops  600 tanks  1,600 planes

 Israel Lau was just 8 years old when an American Jewish Chaplain, smiling and weeping, embraced him in Buchenwald on April 11, “How old are you, my child?” he asked. “What difference does it make. I’m older than you,” I answered. “Why do you think you are older than me?” he asked. “Because you cry and laugh as a child. And I can’t even cry. So I must be older than you.”

 “We started smelling a terrible odor and suddenly we were at the concentration camp at Landsberg. Forced the gate and faced hundreds of starving prisoners….We saw emaciated men whose thighs were smaller than wrists, many had bones sticking out thru their skin…Also we saw hundreds of burned and naked bodies…That evening I wrote my wife that ‘For the first time I truly realized the evil of Hitler and why this war had to be waged.’”  -Robert T. Johnson

 Hitler blamed the Jews for starting the war, and the generals for losing it.  April 30 th, 1945 – Hitler shot himself. He was then carried outside, soaked in gasoline, and set on fire according to his orders.