D-Day to VE Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  • D-Day: June 6, 1944

    • Two years of planning and preparation
    • Attack to get British and Americans on European soil
    • Dwight Eisenhower: American general in charge
    • Storm started around June 4
    • Weather was so bad that the German commander went back to Berlin to visit his wife
    • Germans didn't expect British and Ameficans to attack during the storm
    • Timing of attack gave B + A the element of surprise
    • Eisenhower picked the beaches of Normandy, France to give element of surprise
    • 3rd likely place of attack
    • Germany was fully prepared with soldiers and tanks on the beaches
    • Somewhat lesser forces in other places
    • Gruesome and bloody - died by drowning, German fire…
    • Took 2 or 3 days but B + A pushed through
    • About a week later, B + A established a foundation for invading Europe

  • August 25: Freed Paris (France capital)

  • By the end of 1944, they were ready to go into Germany

  • Battle of the Bulge: Hitler’s counter attack (Jan-Mar 1945)

  • Once D-Day was successful, nothing could stop us

  • April 30, 1945: Hitler committed suicide

  • May 7, 1945: Germans surrendered

    • Became known as VE Day (Victory in Europe Day)

  • Feb-July 1945: US took 2 tiny Japanese islands hundreds of miles away from the Japanese mainland

    • Took 4 ½ months of steady fighting and 10-15K American deaths
    • Japan was still fighting forcefully

  • Summer 1945: Manhattan Project

    • Secret American project from 1942
    • Brought forth results
    • Started to create an atomic bomb
    • Did so successfully 3 yrs later
    • Harry Truman, the president after FDR, was forced to decide whether to use the atomic bomb or not
    • Thought a land invasion of Japan in 46 or 47 would cost 20,000 lives
    • Decided to use atomic bombs
    • By August, US had 4 atomic bombs
    • Truman unleashed the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945
      • Casualties, 100-150K, were equal to one entire day of bombing
      • Not that big a city
      • Japan didn't surrender
    • Truman unleashed the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945
    • By August 15, Japan surrendered
      • Known as VJ Day (Victory in Japan Day)
      • End of WWII