Turning Points on the European Front

Question 1

The Battle of Stalingrad

Answer 1

The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of the war. The German Army had already lost 2 million men on the eastern front.
▪ Stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union
▪ Perhaps the deadliest battle in history (total of 2 million civilian and military casualties)

Question 2

D-Day: Operation Overlord

Answer 2

The Allies needed to establish a second front.
▪ General Eisenhower launched an invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.
▪ An invasion fleet of some 4,000 ships and 150,000 men (57,000 U.S.)
▪ Invasion successful. 10,000 killed and wounded Allied troops.
▪ It allowed them to gain a foothold on the continent from which they could push Germany back

Question 3

The Race to Berlin

Answer 3

D-Day was the turning point of the western front. Stalingrad was the turning point of the eastern front.
● The British, U.S., and Free French armies began to press into western Germany as the Soviets invaded eastern Germany.
● Both sides raced to Berlin.

Question 4

Victory in Europe, 1945

Answer 4

◼ Mussolini was captured and killed by Italian partisans
◼ Hitler died by suicide in April 1945, as the Russian troops took Berlin.
Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945 (V-E Day).
Fighting in the Pacific would continue until August.

Question 5

The Beginning of the End in the Pacific

Question 6

The Empire Begins to Crumble

Answer 6

Loss of Saipan (August 1944)
“The naval and military heart and brain of Japanese defense strategy”
Political crisis in Japan
▪ The government could no longer hide the fact that they were losing the war.
▪ Tōjō resigns on July 18, 1944
Intensive air raids over Japan Iwo Jima (February, 1945)
▪ American marines invaded this island, which was needed to provide fighter escort for bombings over Japan

Question 7

The War Grinds On

Answer 7

In 1945, the U.S. began targeting people in order to coerce Japan to surrender
▪ 66 major Japanese cities bombed
▪ 500,000 civilians killed
Okinawa (April, 1945)
▪ All 110,000 Japanese defenders killed
▪ U.S. invaded this island, which would provide a staging area for the invasion of the Japanese islands.

Question 8

Atom Diplomacy

Answer 8

FDR had funded the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb
◼ An amphibious invasion could cost over 350,000 Allied casualties.

Question 9

Turning Points in the Pacific Theatre

Answer 9

August 6, 1945 – Enola Gay drops bomb (little boy) on Hiroshima
▪ 140,000 dead; tens of thousands injured; radiation sickness; 80% of buildings destroyed
August 9, 1945 – Nagasaki (fat man) ▪ 70,000 dead; 60,000 injured
Rationale for dropping the bomb:
● Force Japanese government to surrender
● Predicted the bomb would be ‘humane’ with
minimal casualties
● Shorten war and save Allied lives
● End the war without Soviet help

Question 10

V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific

Answer 10

Emperor Hirohito surrenders on Aug. 14, 1945. (V-J Day)
Formal surrender signed on September 2nd on board the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay

Question 11

The Cost of War

Question 12

Casualties of WWII

Answer 12

United Kingdom - 450,000 combat and civilian
Canada - 45,000 combat deaths
Germany- 3 million combat deaths (3/4ths on the eastern front)
Japan – over 1.5 million combat deaths; 900,000 civilians dead
Soviet Union - 13 million combat deaths
U.S. – 300,000 combat deaths, over 100,000 other deaths
When you include all combat and civilian deaths, World War II becomes the most destructive war in history with estimates as high as 60 million, including 25 million Russians.

Question 13

Wartime Agreements

Answer 13

Unlike WWI, there was no Peace of Paris to reshape Europe.
● The Yalta agreement of February 1945, signed by Roosevelt (USA), Churchill (UK), and Stalin(USSR) met to decide what post war Europe would look like.
● The Potsdam Conference —Truman, Stalin, Churchill – Finalized plans on Germany. Germany would be demilitarized and would remain divided.

Question 14

Postwar Reality

Answer 14

Consequences of World War II
▪ Soviet Union with agenda- COMMUNISM
▪ Unlike the isolation after WWI, the U.S. was engaged in world affairs
▪ The triumph of Communists in China
▪ Decolonization
▪The independence of nations from European (U.S. & Japan) colonial powers.

Question 15

Post War Efforts and Revenge

Answer 15

The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46
After, WWII the Allied powers decided to place on trial the highest-ranking Nazi officers for “crimes against humanity”
● 22 Nazi leaders were tried at an international military tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany.
● 12 were sentenced to death. Similar trials occurred in the east and throughout the world.

Question 16

Postwar Efforts at Peace

Answer 16

The United Nations – There was some hope when, in 1945, the United Nations was created; an organization to promote international stability