The Allies Win and the End of
War
Formative Assessment on Reading
Respond to this statement with proof from your
reading:
“Let’s hope 1942 brings as much good fortune as
1941.”
- Adolf Hitler
The Allies Plan for Victory
• December 1941 Churchill
and Roosevelt meet and
determine that the U.S.
will help its allies
• Stalin wanted to open up
the western front so the
Germans have to fight on
both fronts but Roosevelt
and Churchill begin
fighting in North Africa
and southern Europe
The North Africa Campaign
• Germans had been
successful at advancing
across the North African
desert
• When German General Erwin
Rommel took Tobruk in 1942,
the British got nervous and
sent Bernard Montgomery to
fight
• Battle of El AlameinMontgomery defeats Rommel
• Operation Torch- Allied force
led by Dwight D. Eisenhower
lands in Morocco and Algeria
and finally defeats the Afrika
Korps
Stalingrad
• German armies had stalled in Leningrad and Moscow (partly
because of winter weather)
• August 1942 Battle of Stalingrad- Hitler's Luftwaffe
destroyed much of the city but the residents wouldn't give in
and they stalled again
• By November another Russian winter was upon the troops
and neither side was willing to give in
• February 1943 the German soldiers surrender
• The city was destroyed but it meant that the Germans were
now on the defensive
Italy
• July 1943 Roosevelt and
Churchill begin attacking
Italy
• Mussolini fell from power
when Sicily was invaded
• September- Italy
surrendered
• Hitler, however, took
charge of northern Italy
• June 1944 Allies enter
Rome but fighting would
continue until 1945 when
Germany fell
• Mussolini was hanged
Life at Home During the War
• Total war- factories
began to produce
wartime goods like boats
or machine guns
• Many women enter the
workforce and most
Americans work in
factories producing
goods for the war
• Rationing dictated by
governments
• Propaganda used widely
to inspire support for the
war effort
Allied Victory in Europe
• D-Day invasion- June 6, 1944
o Code-name- Operation Overlord
o Invasion of Normandy was the greatest land and sea
attack in history
o Combined allied force of British, American, French, and
Canadian forces
o Huge casualties on the beach
o July 25- allies break through the German defense
o Aug. 25- Allies march to Paris
o By September France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the
Netherlands had been liberated
Storming Normandy- Operation
Overlord
The End.....
• Germany now surrounded and fighting a two-front war
• Battle of the Bulge
o Dec. 16, 1944 Hitler decides to counterattack allied forces
o He was successful for a moment but ultimately lost
• April 25, 1945 Soviets had surrounded Berlin
• Hitler married his longtime girlfriend, Eva Braun, and then
they commit suicide
• May 7, 1945 German military surrenders
• May 8- Victory in Europe Day (V-E day)
Japanese Retreat and Surrender
• 1944 MacArthur returned
to Philippines
• Kamikaze – Japanese
suicide pilots
• March 1945 – Americans
take Iwo Jima
• Truman drops the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima
(Aug. 6, 1945) and
Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945)
• Sep. 2 – Japan surrenders
After the War: Europe in Ruins
• Destruction of WWII unprecedented (60 million dead)
• Europe in ruinso 40 million people dead
o cities destroyed from bombing
o countryside also in ruins
o no jobs left because cities destroyed
• People begin starving to death
Postwar Governments and Politics
• many people blamed their governments for the mess
• Increase in Communist party membership until the
economies stabilized
How did they Deal with the
Holocaust?
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Nuremburg Trials- 1946
22 Nazis put on trial
12 sentenced to death
Some war criminals escaped by committing
suicide before the trials
• Other war criminals escaped Germany and lived
incognito in other countries
Effects of Defeat in Japan
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August 1945 Japan surrenders to MacArthur
country's major cities ruined
2 million people dead
no more colonial empire
U.S. Occupation of Japan
• U.S. occupies Japan
and takes away their
army (demilitarization)
• U.S occupation lasts
until 1953
• U.S. General
MacArthur leads
occupation
• War criminals were
tried and sentenced
Japan’s New Constitution
• May 1947 new constitution- parliamentary
democracy with a 2- house Diet (congress)
• Post of prime minister established
• Vote for citizens over 20
• Japan not allowed to begin an offensive war
• Sep. 1951 formal peace treaty with Japan
** As a side note, Japan’s economy rapidly increased because the
government diverted all resources to businesses and industry because
they had no military expenditure