Notes: Military Strategies in WWII Video clip – D Day
1. “Europe First” Strategy War on two fronts - Europe and the Pacific – at the same time was too costly, so the Allies decided to concentrate on winning back Europe from Germany while fighting a defensive war against Japan.
2. Postponement of an invasion of France In 1941, limited Allied resources and inexperienced U.S. troops convinced FDR & Churchill to postpone attempts to liberate France from German occupation. This decision left the Soviets on their own to fight Hitler on the eastern front.
3. Decision not to bomb the concentration camps As more Jews came under Nazi control, the Nazis decided on the “Final Solution” to systematically exterminate the Jews. Many wanted the U.S. to bomb the Nazis death camps (destroying gas chambers and nearby rail lines) U.S. decided it couldn’t divert resources from military targets or risk killing so many prisoners.
4. Operation Overlord This Allied invasion of France began on June 6, 1944 (“D Day”) led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower After bloody fighting, the Allies liberated France from German occupation and crossed into Germany.
5. Liberation of concentration camps U.S. & British troops pushed into Germany from the west, the Soviets from the east. The Nazis killed about 6 million Jews or 40% of the world’s Jewish population in the Holocaust before the Allies liberated the camps. Video clip V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) marked the German surrender on May 8, 1945 after Hitler’s suicide on April 30 (FDR had died on April 12th)
6. Leapfrogging strategy Leapfrogging – liberating weaker Japanese-held islands in the Pacific and using them as bases for assaults on other islands as the forces moved closer to Japan Battle of Midway – Allied victory and last Japanese offensive … turning point in the Pacific Heavy losses Iwo Jima cost 6,800 US lives (22,000 Japanese) Okinawa cost 12,000 US lives (100,000 Japanese)
7. Decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan Video clip Activity “Assessing the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb”