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The City of Stalingrad was key to Germany for their attack. Germans were forced to fight from house to house, losing thousands of soldiers in the process. -
Prime Minister Churchill did not believe the United States and Britain were ready to invade Europe, so he proposed that the U.S and Britain should attack the periphery of the German empire. President Roosevelt agreed and ordered the invasion of Morocco and Algeria. -
German submarines sunk about 360 American ships along the East Coast, including many oil tankers. This convinced the U.S Navy to set up a convoy system in which cargo ships traveled in groups escorted by warships. This improved the situation, making it much more difficult for a submarine to torpedo a cargo ship and escape without being attacked. -
On November 23rd, Soviet reinforcements arrived and surrounded Stalingrad, trapping almost 250,000 German troops. When the battle ended in February 1943, 91,000 Germans had surrendered. -
Stalin promised to launch a full-scale offense against the Germans. Roosevelt and Stalin agreed to divide Germany after the war so that it would never again threaten world peace. -
In January 1943, Roosevelt headed to Casablanca, Morocco, to meet the prime minister. At the Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to step up the bombing of Germany. The goal of this new campaign was "the progressive destruction of the German military, industrial, and economic system, and the undermining of the moral of the German people. -
Between January 1943 and May 1945, the Royal Air Force and the United States Eighth Army Air Force dropped approximately 53,000 tons of explosives on Germany every month.
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The first opportunity to attack Normandy's coast was from June 5th to 7th, 1944. Eisenhower's planning staff referred to the day as D-Day. Although, Heavy cloud cover, strong winds, and high waves made June 5th impossible.
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7,000 ships carrying more than 100,000 soldiers headed for Normandy's coast. there were 5 beaches code-named "Utah," "Omaha," "Gold," "Sword," and "Juno." On Omaha Beach, Germans had made full use of the geographic advantage the high bluff gave them. Slowly, American troops began to knock out the German defenses. Although, nearly 2,500 Americans were killed or wounded on Omaha. After a bloody fight, the invasion had succeeded. -
After looking at the forecasts one last time, shortly after midnight on June 6th, 1944, Eisenhower gave the final order: "Ok, we'll go."