Italy – July 1943-May 1945
By the middle of 1943, the Germans had been defeated and removed from N.
Africa
In the East, the Germans were engaged in a ‘fighting retreat’ back towards Berlin.
Each day, thousands of German and Russian troops were dying.
Therefore, Stalin put pressure on the Western Allies to open the Western Front.
Western Allies response: “We’re not prepared”.
Instead, USA, Britain, and Canada decided to invade Sicily on 9 July, 1943, and
use it as a launching point to invade Italy.
Amphibious attack on Sicily
During the fighting on Sicily, Mussolini was overthrown, and on 8 September,
1943, Italy announced its surrender.
For the remainder of the Italian campaign, Germany would fight on its own.
Hitler, ever loyal to Mussolini, rescued him and reinstalled him as a puppet
dictator in Italy’s north
Salerno, Italy
Allied forces invaded Italy on 9 September, 1943.
The fight to oust the Germans from Italy would be some of the toughest fighting
of the war.
Rome finally fell on 5 June, 1944. The Germans were finally defeated in Italy by
2 May, 1945.
Mussolini was displayed with his mistress, hung by his feet in Milan’s streets.
Strategic Bombing:
Starting with the Battle of Britain, the war on the Western Front was mainly a
battle in the air.
Britain, USA, and Canada brought in the concept of Strategic Bombing:
The attempt to hit certain, key targets that are vital to the enemies’ war effort.
2 Purposes:
1.
It attempted to limit the German ability to conduct the war at all. The
Allies bombed factories (precision bombing), and cities (area bombing) as well as
vital facilities such as oil refineries and storage depots.
2.
The bombing was also supposed to demoralize the enemy. This was no
more successful against the Germans as it was against the British in the Battle of
Britain. The Germans, too, apparently declared, “we can take it”.
It was not until late 1943 that the Allies were achieving total destruction of
German cities and critically disrupting their civilian populations
Importance of Italian campaign:
1.
used as an avenue through which to liberate Europe
2.
Occupied German troops in Italy… kept thousands of them from
France.
Battle of the Atlantic – notes
The ongoing struggle of the British to keep open her shipping lanes to merchant
ships from North America
Most Allied ships were sunk by U-Boats, hunting in groups called “Wolf Packs”
By the middle of 1942, Hitler was sinking Allied ships faster than the Allies were
building them.
The turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic came in the Spring of 1943
In a single 20-day period, the U-boats sank 107 Allied ships… how to reverse this
trend?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Radar & Sonar – available on naval support groups who in turn were
guided by aircraft with long range flight capabilities  this went a
long way toward closing what was known as the mid-Atlantic gap
Allied ships were effectively organized into safe convoys which
involved more escorts and hunter groups as well as anti-submarine
weapons
Cracked German codes with the Enigma
Long Range bombers (Liberator) … 18 400 produced!
Soon, the British counter-attack on the U-boat became so effective that between
June and August (1943), 79 U-boats were sunk. Well over half of that umber
were sunk by attacks from aircraft
Suddenly, the U-boats ceased to play a role in the North Atlantic. The
significance of this Allied victory cannot be exaggerated.
Neutrality Acts of 1936
No sale or trade of arms to belligerent countries in war (Italy at this time). This
did not include civil wars, so exempt Spain, and in fact companies like Texaco,
GM, and Studebaker sold goods to Franco in Spain!
Neutrality Acts of 1937 – outlawed the sale of arms to Spain and other civil
wars
Cash & Carry  would replace the Neutrality Acts as war spread through
Europe.
The revision allowed the sale of materiel to belligerents, as long as the recipients
arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash,
assuming all risk in transportation. The purpose was to hold neutrality between
the United States and European countries while still giving aid to Britain,
exploiting the fact that Germany had no funds and could not reliably ship across
the British-controlled Atlantic
Lend-Lease
By the summer of 1940, the new British prime minister, Winston Churchill, was
warning that his country did not have enough money to pay for war materials
much longer. To remedy this situation, Roosevelt on December 8, 1940,
proposed the concept of lend-lease so that participants could draw on the
industrial resources of the United States.
The legislation gave the president authority to aid any nation 'whose defense the
President deems vital to the defense of the United States, to sell, transfer title to,
exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government any
defense article' not expressly prohibited and to accept repayment 'in kind or
property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems
satisfactory.'
The law originally authorized an appropriation of $1 million. Though lend-lease
had been authorized primarily to aid Great Britain, it was extended to China in
April 1941, to the Soviet Union in September, and eventually to some 35
countries.
A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $611 billion today) worth of supplies were
shipped: $31.4 billion to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to
France, and $1.6 billion to China.
Much of the aid amounted to outright gifts. Some of the cost of the lend-lease
program was offset by 'reverse lend-lease,' under which Allied nations gave U.S.
troops stationed abroad about $8 billion worth of aid.
Arrangements for the repayments by the recipient nations began shortly after
the war ended. Except for the Soviet debt, of which less than one-third was
repaid, repayment was virtually complete by the late 1960s. The United States in
1972, accepted an offer by the Soviet Union to pay $722 million in installments
through 2001 to settle its indebtedness
Historical Significance
With a safe route for North American goods to reach Europe, the mighty
industrial power of the USA would greatly aid the Allies
Allied powers could now prepare for D-Day
Opening the Western Front – Germany’s Defeat
6 June 1944
3 names for this event:
1. D-Day
2. Operation Overlord
3. The Longest Day
By the spring of 1944, Hitler anticipated an Allied invasion on the shores of
France
He placed the task of defending “Fortress Europa” in the hands of Erwin Rommel
The Germans did a number of things to make landing on the shores very difficult,
using millions of slave labourers to build up their “Atlantic Wall”
1. Landmines
2. Bunkers/Machine Guns
3. Tetrahedrals
4. Barbed wire
Allied commander: Dwight D. Eisenhower
3 million allied troops … 175 000 in the first wave
USA IN CHARGE!
The allies divided the shores of Normandy into 5 beaches… (U O G J S)
On the day of attack, the British, American, and Canadian forces used 3 different
methods:
1. aerial and ship bombardment
2. paratroopers
3. shore landing
By the end of the “Longest Day”, the Allies had secured the beaches
By 25 August, 1944, the Allies and De Gaulle had marched into Paris
Operation Market Garden
Germans slaughtered 3 airborne divisions that were dropped above their
positions in Holland.
Battle of the Bulge
200 000 German troops attacked a weak point in the Allied lines.
The fighting took place in December of ’44… and despite some early advances,
the Germans were halted on Xmas Day.
With little hope of winning the war, the Germans launched a new form of
warfare against London.
1. V-1 (Buzz Bombs) – unmanned flying bombs (easily shot down)
2. V-2 rocket – supersonic ballistic missile
Both would be predictors of the future of warfare
Dresden
On 13 and 14 February, 1945, the Allies launched an infamous raid on Dresden,
which was of no significant military importance
This fire-bombing raid killed over 100 000 German people… an excess that
happened on the Allied side of the war.
In late April, US and Soviet forces met in Germany south of Berlin.
Germany had been militarily cut in half.
Soviets now turned their attention to demolishing Berlin.
Hitler committed suicide on 30 April
May 2 – Berlin fell to the Russians
May 7 – Germany’s unconditional surrender
VE Day was May 8, 1945