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Roosevelt’s Death
President Roosevelt did not live to see V-E Day. On April 12, 1945, while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president. -
hiroshima and nagasaki
On August 6, a B-29 bomber named Enola Gay released a atomic bomb, coded named Little Boy, over Hiroshima, an important Japanese military center. Forty three seconds later, almost every building in the city collapsed into dust from the force of the blast. -
The War for Europe and North Africa
U.S. and Britain Join forces - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wired President Roosevelt two days after the Pearl Harbor attack, “Would it not be be wise for us to have another conference .... And the sooner the better.” Roosevelt responded with an invitation for Churchill to come at once. So began a remarkable alliance between the two nations -
The Manhattan Project
Led by General Leslie Groves with research directed by American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the development of the atomic bomb was not only the most ambitious scientific enterprise in history, it was also the best kept secret of the war. At its peak, more than 600,000 Americans were involved in the project, although few knew its ultimate purpose. Even Truman did not learn until he became president. The first test of the new bomb took place on -
BATTLE OF ATLANTIC
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America’s east coast. The German aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and warm materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain depended on supplies from the sea. The 3,000-mile-long shipping lanes from North America were her lifeline, Britain would be starved into submission. -
North african front
While the Battle of Stalingrad raged, Stalin pressured Britain and America to open a “second front” in Western Europe. He argued from an invasion across the English Channel would force Hitler to divert troops from the Soviet front. Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t think the Allies had enough troops to attempt an invasion on European soil. Instead, they launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Axis controlled North Africa, commanded by American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In November 1942, some 1 -
pearl habor
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had missed the Pacific Fleet’s submarines. -
WAR PLANS
Prime Minster Churchill arrived at the White House on December 22, 1941, and spent the next three weeks working out war plans with President Roosevelt and his advisors. Believing that Germany and Italy posed a greater threat that Japan, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to strike first against Hitler. Once the allies had gained an upper hand in Europe, they could pour more resources into the Pacific War. -
Doolittle’s Raid
In the spring of 1942, the Allies began to turn the tide against the Japanese. The push began on April 18 with a daring raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led 16 bombers in the attack. The next day, Americans awoke to headlines that read “Tokyo Bombed! Doolittle Do’od It.” Pulling off a Pearl Harbor style air raid over Japan lifted American’s sunken spirits. At the same time, it dampened spirits in Japan. -
the battle of coral sea
The main Allied forces in the Pacific were Americans and Australia in the five-day Battle of the Coral Sea. During this battle, the fighting was one by airplanes that took off from enormous aircraft carriers. Not a single shot was fired by surface ships. For the first time since Pearl Harbor, a Japanese invasion had been stopped and turned back. -
the battle of midway
Japan’s next thrust was toward Midway, a strategic island which lies northwest of Hawaii. Here again the Allies succeeded in stopping the Japanese. Americans had broken the Japanese code and knew that Midway was to be their next target. -
The battle of stalingard
he Germans had been fighting in the Soviet Union since June 1941. In November 1941, the bitter cold had stopped them in their tracks outside the Soviet cities of Moscow and Leningrad. When spring came, the German tanks were ready to roll. In the summer of 1942, the Germans took the offensive in the southern Soviet Union. Hitler hoped to capture Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. He also wanted to wipe out Stalingrad, a major industrial center on the Volga River. -
the Italian Campaign
Even before the battle in North Africa was won, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their commanders met in Casablanca. At this meeting, the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. -
D-Day
Under Eisenhower’s direction in England, the Allies gathered a force of nearly 3 million British, American, and Canadian troops, together with mountains of military equipment and supplies. Eisenhower planned to attack Normandy in northern France. To keep their plans secret, the Allies set up a huge phantom army with its own headquarters and equipment. -
Liberation of Death Camps
Allied troops pressed eastward into the German heartland, and the Soviet army pushed westward across Poland toward Berlin. Soviet troops were first to come upon one of the Nazi death camps, in July 1944. -
Battle of the Bulge
In October 1944, Americans captured their first German town, Aachen. Hitler responded with a desperate last gasp offensive. He ordered his troops to break through the Allied lines and to recapture the Belgian port of Antwerp. This bold move, the Fuhrer hoped, would disrupt the enemy’s supply lines and demoralize the Allies -
yalta conference
February 1945, as the Allies pushed toward victory in Europe, an ailing Roosevelt had met with Churchill and Stalin at the Black Sea resort city of Yalta in the Soviet Union. -
Iwo Jima
After retaking much of the Philippines and liberating the American prisoners of war there, the Allies turn to Iwo Jima, an island that writer William Manchester later described as “an ugly, smelly glob of cold larva squatting in a surly ocean,” Iwo Jima (which means “sulfur island” in Japanese) was critical to the United States as a base from which heavily defended spot on earth, with 20,700 Japanese troops entrenched in tunnels and caves. -
the battle of okinawa
In April 1945, U.S. Marines invaded Okinawa. The Japanese unleashed more than 1,900 kamikaze attacks on the Allies during the Okinawa campaign, sinking 30 ships, damaging more than 300 more, and killing almost 5,000 mariners. -
nureberg
Besides geographic division, Germany had another price to pay for its part in the war. The discovery of Hitler’s death camps led the Allies to put 24 surviving Nazi leaders in trial for crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, and war crimes. -
the occupaation of japan
Japan was occupied by U.S. forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. In the early years of the occupation, more than 1,100 Japanese from former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo to lowly prison guards, were arrested and put on trial.
