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Battle of the Atlantic
Germans began to try and destroy allied Britsh, French, Canadian, and U.S. ships around Great Britain. In doing this they hoped to surround Great Britain and cut off supplies they were recieving for war. The name of the German naval group was called Kriegsmarine. This battle lasted the length of the war with the allies eventually emerging as the victors. -
Battle of Britain
Kicking off in the summer, German Luftwaffe and Britsh Royal Airforces clashed in the skies over the United Kingdom. This air war is still known to this day to be the largest continous bombing in histroy. It seemed to be that both sides were at a stalemate until the Germans decided to lay off for awhile on the attacks. This mistake caused them to eventually lose the battle to the Britsh airforce. -
Battle of Stalingrad
This battle marked one the Soviet's most outstanding defense of the city of Stalingrad. This battle and succesful defense of this city was a truning point in the war for the allies. The battle of Stalingrad is one of the most bloodiest and brutal single battle in the history of earth resulting in 2 million miltary and civillian casualties. Earlier that year Germans were in control of that city, but later the Soviets would surround the city and kill, starve, and wait out on entire German army. -
Battle of El Alamein, Egypt
The battle was between the Britsh, Germans, and Italians. Great Britain was trying to defend Africa while the Germans and Italians were planning to take it. Germans were decimating the Royal British Army though with constant air and tank raids. Though it seemed like it'd be a clear victory for the axis powers, the British troops were finally reinforced with American troops and some other contries who were helping the allies. The allies had beat back the axis. This was a turning point in Africa. -
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the na e given to the Allied invasion by British and American troops into French North Africa. This was the first time that Ameircan and Britsh troops had worked formly in a joint operation together. The main point of this operation was to take Morrocco from the French. They had a 60,000 troops and a small navy. This operation was kicked off by landing in three different places on the beach. Very little French resisted though and Morocco was taken with very few casualties. -
Invasion of Sicily/Italy
After defeating the axis in Africa the allies turned to Italy for thier next step in ending WWII. The first step in this assault was to invade the island of Sicily. Roosevelt and Churchill talked ot the Italian people statiing "whether they want to die for Mussolini and Hitler or live for Italy and civilization". Most Italians choose to support this message. Eventually the Italian people turned agasint Mussolini and he was taken down form power. Weeks later the allies had taken the island. -
Operation Overlord
For the allied to end the war as quickly as possible they planned a large scale invasion to liberate western Europe from Nazy control. This invasion was launched by sea with five different landing points along the beaches of France. Allied troops were couragous and determined to take the beaches. In the end the allied had accomplished what they had set out to do but with a high cost. An estimated 10,000 allied lost their lives that day. -
Battle of the Bulge
Before the battle had happend, Hitler wanted to try and split the allied forces in the northwest by a surprise blitzkreig. The goal was to take bridges that were under the allies control. One of the series of battle that took place was the battle of the bulge. The name was given to this battle because the allied line took the aperance of a large bulge. The Germans still hit the allies hard though. Heavy causlties were sustained but the allies hung in and were abel to defend agasint the Nazis. -
Hitler's Death
In the last weeks of April German resistance was crumbling. Adolf Hitler began to realize that their was no hope for the Nazis to win the war. Soviet forces began meeting up with other allied forces, massive bombardments on Berlin were taking place, everything that Hitler worked for had fallen right in front of him. Seeing that their was no other way out he took his own life in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. -
V-E Day
Also known as Victory in Europe Day, this day was the agreement by the Nazi party that they would no longer fight in the war. News spread to the United States quickly and the people celebrated. Though notice it was only a victory in the Europen front. Many still were fighting for thier lives in a place known as Okinawa agasint the Japanese.