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Hitler ordered his troops to invade the Soviet Union. The impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October.
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360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. naval base in Hawaii, which took Americans completely by surprise and claimed the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II, and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one opposing vote.
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Roosevelt ordered the invasion of Morocco and Algeria which where 2 French territories under German control. This helped the British fight the Germans in Egypt. German general Erwin Rommel “Desert Fox”, commanded the “Afrika Korps”. After a 12-day battle at the coastal city of El Alamein, the British secured the Suez Canal and forced Rommel to retreat in November.
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German submarines had sunk about 360 American ships along the East Coast, including many oil tankers. The U.S. Navy set up a convoy system where cargo ships traveled in groups escorted by warships. This made it much more difficult for a submarine to torpedo a cargo ship and escape without being attacked. In May and June, over 1.2 million tons of shipping were sunk. However also in those 2 months, American and British shipyards built more than 1.1 million tons of new shipping.
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Adolf Hitler ordered his army to capture strategic oil fields, factories, and farmlands in southern Russia and Ukraine. Germans were forced to fight house to house which caused them to lose thousands of troops because they weren’t equipped to fight in the bitter cold unlike the Soviets. Soviet reinforcements arrived and surrounded Stalingrad, trapping 250,000 German troops.
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Admiral Nimitz wanted to ambush the Japanese fleet. The Japanese launched their aircraft against Midway, unaware of the ambush. They ran into a blizzard of antiaircraft fire and 38 planes were shot down. The battle was a major turning point. The Japanese navy lost 4 large carriers which were the heart of its fleet. 362 Americans and 3,057 Japanese were killed.
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The Royal Air Force and the U.S. 8th Army Air Force dropped 53,000 tons of explosives on Germany every month. This didn’t destroy Germany’s economy but it did cause severe oil shortages and wrecked the railroad system. Germany lost so many aircraft factories that it could not replace its losses.
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Roosevelt met with Stalin and they reached several agreements. Stalin promised to launch a full-scale offensive against the Germans when the Allies invaded France. They agreed to divide Germany so that it would never threaten world peace again. Stalin also promised the Soviet Union would help the U.S. against Japan once Germany was defeated. He also agreed to an international peacekeeping organization after the war.
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8 days after troops came ashore, American tanks smashed through enemy lines and captured the western half of the island. Germans had evacuated by August. The attack created a crisis in the Italian government and Emmanuel decided to dispose of Mussolini and arrest him.
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The Allies landed 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France. Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his army into Western Europe, ensuring Germany’s defeat in the east. Soviet troops soon advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, while Hitler gathered his forces to drive the Americans and British back from Germany in the Battle of the Bulge.