1. Striking Germany and Italy
1.1. Strategic bombing
1.1.1. The bombing campaign did not destroy the German economy.
1.1.2. The bombing campaign did destroy the railroad system and caused a severe oil shortage.
1.2. Casablanca:
1.2.1. The new goal of Great Britain and the United States was to destroy the German military.
1.2.2. January 1943 FDR headed to Casablanca Morocco to meet the Prime Minister.
1.3. Striking the soft underbelly
1.3.1. The invasion of Sicily began July 10, 1943.
1.3.2. Eight days after they landed on the island they captured the Western half of the island.
1.3.3. The king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, and a group of Italian generals decided that it was time to depose Mussolini.
1.3.4. On July 25, 1943, the king invited the dictator to his palace.
1.3.5. Following Italy’s surrender, however, German troops seized control of northern Italy, including Rome, and returned Mussolini to power.
1.3.6. Rather than attack such difficult terrain, the Allies landed at Anzio, behind German lines. Instead of retreating, however, as the Allies had hoped, the Germans surrounded the Allied troops near Anzio.
1.3.7. It took the Allies five months to break through the German lines at Cassino and Anzio.
1.3.8. The Italian campaign was one of the bloodiest in the war, with more than 300,000 Allied casualties.
1.4. The Tehran Conference
1.4.1. Roosevelt wanted to meet with Stalin before the Allies invaded France. In late 1943, Stalin agreed, proposing that Roosevelt and Churchill meet him in Tehran, Iran.
1.4.2. Roosevelt and Stalin then agreed to divide Germany after the war so that it would never again threaten world peace.
2. Landing in France
2.1. Planning Operation Overlord
2.1.1. By the spring of 1944, more than 1.5 millionAmerican soldiers, 12,000 airplanes, and 5 mil-lion tons (4.6 million t) of equipment had been sent to England.
2.2. The Longest Day
2.2.1. Nearly 7,000 ships carrying more than 100,000 soldiers headed for Normandy’s coast. At the same time, 23,000 paratroopers were dropped inland, east and west of the beaches.
2.2.2. Thousands of shells rained down on the beaches, code-named “Utah,” “Omaha,” “Gold,” “Sword,” and “Juno.”barrage.
3. Driving Japan Back
3.1. Island-Hopping in the Pacific
3.1.1. beach. As some 5,000 United States Marines learned at Tarawa Atoll, wading ashore could cause very high casualties. Tarawa, part of the Gilbert Islands, was the navy’s first objective.