1. Chapter 11 Section 3 Victory in Europe and the Pacific

2. Planning Germany’s Defeat Up until this point Stalin was almost begging Churchill and Roosevelt to open a second front. Roosevelt was sympathetic but Churchill recalled the horrors of World War I. The big 3 met in Tehran, Iran for their first meeting convincing Churchill to conduct a cross channel invasion (Tehran Conference). 6 months later the invasion became reality. – It went under the codename: Operation Overlord.

3. D-Day Dwight D. Eisenhower serves as Supreme Commander of Allied forces. General Bernard Montgomery served as commander of ground forces General Omar Bradley led the US First Army.

4. The Plan! Operation Overlord was to include the landing of: 21 American divisions 26 British, Canadian and Polish divisions It was the largest fleet ever assembled with 4,400 ships and landing crafts.

5. The Plan! Overlord called for the invasion of 5 beaches. Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The Allies formed a fictional army under Patton. It included tanks made out of wood and cardboard. It was headquartered across the English Channel across from the French city of Calais. The diversion worked Hitler moved his tanks toward Calais and away from Normandy.

6. Storming of the Beaches June 6 th,1944: D-Day Allied aircraft begin to soften German forces. At 6:30 AM the first troops land. Omaha Beach was the most opposed beach which is where the Americans were assigned.

7. Storming the Beaches Germans had dug trenches as well as mined and used a number of deadly machine guns. Many soldier drowned because of heavy packs. D-Day was referred to as “the longest day”. Within the month more than 1,000,000 troops land in France.

8. Liberation of Europe 1944 aka the year Hitler lost control. The Germans were fighting a hopeless two-front war. August of 1944 the Allies liberate Paris. Hitler’s officers soon begin to disobey and on July 20 th, 1944 an officer tried to assassinate Hitler.

9. Germany Counterattacks In December of 1944 Hitler launched a counterattack that would come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans caught the Americans by surprise and created a bulge in the American line. The Allies managed to hold on at the Belgian town of Bastogne. After that the Allies began pushing the Germans out of France.

10. Allied Push to Victory By January 1945 the Soviets had entered Germany and were right outside of Berlin. The Allies were also making their way north through Italy. In April, 1945 Mussolini tries to leave Italy but is caught and executed. April 30 th, 1945 Adolf Hitler will commit suicide in a bunker in Berlin.

11. Allied Push to Victory American and British troops were past the Rhine river in eastern Germany. In April the US and British were also 50 miles outside Berlin. All Allied forces were in position to make the final assault on Berlin. On May 7 th,1945 Germany surrenders it is known as V-E day. FDR would not live to see the surrender he would die April 12 th 1945. Harry S. Truman would take over as President.

12. Advancing in the Pacific US forces in the Pacific had been advancing quickly through the Japanese territories. They adopted what was called an island- hopping strategy that went through specific islands while ignoring others.

13. The Japanese Fight Until the End As the Japanese were losing ground they fought to the last man. Rather than surrender many Japanese committed suicide. Around this time the kamikaze pilots begin to crash their planes into American ships.

14. American Forces Near Japan In February and March of 1945 Americans fought the battle of Iwo Jima. This battle is where the famous flag raising picture was taken. The battle of Okinawa helped the US take an Airfield even closer to the Japanese mainland.

15. The Atomic Bomb Ends the War Albert Einstein sends a letter to FDR addressing the need for nuclear development. Einstein himself would not work on the bomb. The development of the bomb went under the title of the Manhattan Project. J Robert Oppenheimer the physicist responsible for the design of the bomb.

16. Truman and the Decision The decision to drop the bomb fell on the shoulders of Harry S. Truman. Truman had to weigh pros and cons. His final decision was eventually to drop the bomb.

17. Hiroshima and Nagasaki August 6 th, 1945 the US drops the first bomb on Hiroshima. August 9 th, 1945 the US drops a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki and the Soviet Union declares war on Japan. August 15 th, 1945 Japan surrenders ending World War II.