1. Striking Germany and Italy
1.1. Strategic Bombing
1.1.1. The allies had been bombing Germany even before the Casablanca Conference.
1.1.1.1. Britain's Royal Air Force had dropped an average of 2300 tons of explosives on Germany every month for three years.
1.1.1.2. United States Eighth Army Air Force had dropped an additional 1500 tons of bombs during last six months of 1942.
1.1.2. The bombing campaign did not destroy Germany's economy or undermine German morale, but it did cause a severe oil shortage and wrecked the railroad system.
1.1.2.1. It also destroyed so many aircraft factories that Germany's air force could not replace its losses.
1.1.3. By the time the Allies landed in France, they had control of the sair, ensuring that their troops would not be bombed.
1.2. Striking the Soft
1.2.1. As the bombing campaign against Germany intensified, plans to invade Sicily also moved ahead.
1.2.1.1. General Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded the invasion, with General Patton and the british General Bernard Montgomery heading the ground force.
1.2.1.1.1. The invasion began before dawn on July 10,1943.
1.2.2. Eight days after the troops came a shore, American tanks smashed through enemy lines and captured the western half of the island.
1.2.2.1. Patton's troops headed east, while the British attacked from the south.
1.2.2.1.1. By August 18, the Germans had evacuated the island.
1.2.3. The attack on Sicily created a crisis within the Italian government, king Victor Emmanuel and a group of Italian generals decided that it was time to depose Mussolini.
1.2.3.1. On July 25, 1943, the king invited the dictator to his palace. The king then arrested him and the new government began negotiating a surrender to the Allies.
1.2.3.1.1. Following this German troops seized control of the northern Italy, and returned Mussolini to power.
1.2.4. It took the Allies five months to break through the German lines at Cassino and Anzio.
1.2.4.1. May 1944 the Germans retreated. In less then two weeks the Allies captured Rome.
1.2.4.1.1. The Italian campaign was one of the bloodiest in the war, with more than 300,000 Allied casualties.
1.3. The Tehran Conference
1.3.1. Roosevelt wanted to meet with Stalin before the Allies invaded France
1.3.1.1. 1943, Stalin agreed, proposing that Roosevelt and Churhill meet him in Tehran, Iran.
1.3.1.2. They reached several agreements.
1.3.1.2.1. Stalin promised to launch a full-scale offensive against the Germans when the Allies invaded France in 1944.
1.3.1.2.2. Roosevelt and Stalin then agreed the to divide Germany after the war so that it would never again threaten world peace.
1.3.1.2.3. Stalin promised that once Germany was defeated, the Soviet Union would help the United States against Japan.
1.3.1.2.4. Roosevelt's proposal of an international peace-keeping organization after the war.
2. Landing in France
2.1. Planning Operation Overlord
2.1.1. Knowing that the Allies would eventually invaded France, Hitler fortified the coast.
2.1.1.1. Hitler didn't know were they were going to land. So this gave the Allies a the advantage
2.1.1.2. The Germans believed the Allies would lad in Pas-de-Calais, the area of France closest to Britain.
2.1.1.2.1. The Allies placed dummy equipment along the coast across from Calais as decoys.
2.1.2. By the spring of 1944, more than 1.5 million Americans soldier, 12,000 airplanes, and 5 million tons of equipment had been sent to England.
2.1.2.1. The invasion happen at night to hid the ships across the English Channel. They arrived when there was a low tide so that they could see the beach obstales.
2.1.3. There was only a few day in a month that the invasion could work on.
2.2. The Longest Day
2.2.1. Nearly, 7,000 ships carrying more than 100,000soldiers headed for Normandy's coast. At the same time,23,000 paratroopers were dropped inland, east and west of the beaches.
2.2.1.1. Allied fighter-bombers raced up and down the coast, hitting bridges, bunkers, and radar sites.
2.2.1.1.1. Warships bagan a tremendous barrage, thousand of shell rained down of the beaches witch were call code-names likeUtah, Omaha, Gold, Sword,and Juno.
2.2.2. Americans stormed Utah beach and in less than three hours German's defenses were broke.We only suffered 200 casualties
2.2.3. British and Canada forces were several miles inland, Omaha beach was a different story.
2.2.3.1. Under intense German fire, the Americans assault almost disintegrated, Lieutenant Benz Carroll was the first on shore.
2.2.4. General Omar Bradley, commander of the American forces landing at Omaha and Utah, slowly we knocked out Germans defense.
2.2.4.1. Nearly 2,500 Americans were either killed or wounded in Omaha.
2.2.4.1.1. By the end of the day nearly 35,000 American troops had landed at Omaha and another 23,000 had landed at Utah.
2.2.5. The invasion was the largest amphibious operation in history that had succeeded.
3. Driving Back Japan
3.1. Island-Hopping in the Pacific
3.1.1. by the fall of 1943, the navy was ready to launch its island hopping campaign, but the geography of the central Pacific posed a problem. Many of the islands were coral reef atolls.
3.1.1.1. The water over the coral reef was not always deep enough to allow landing craft to get to the shore. If the landing craft ran aground on the reef, the troops would have to wade to the beach.
3.1.2. Tarawa, part of the Gilbert Islands, was the navy’s first objective.
3.1.2.1. The Japanese base there had to be captured in order to put air bases in the nearby Marshall Islands.
3.1.3. The vehicle was a boat with tank tracks, nicknamed the “Alligator.” This amphibious tractor, or amphtrac, had been invented in the late 1930s to rescue people in Florida swamps.
3.1.3.1. It had never been used in combat, and the navy decided to buy only 200 of them in 1941. If more had been available at Tarawa, American casualties probably would have been much lower.
3.1.3.2. The next assault—Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands—went much more smoothly. This time all of the troops went ashore in amphtracs.
3.1.4. After the Marshall Islands, the navy targeted the Mariana Islands. American military planners wanted to use the Marianas as a base for a new heavy bomber, the B-29 Superfortress.
3.1.4.1. The B-29 could fly farther than any other plane in the world. From airfields in the Marianas, B-29s could bomb Japan.
3.1.5. Admiral Nimitz decided to invade three of the Mariana Islands: Saipan, Tinian, and Guam. Despite strong Japanese resistance, American troops captured all three by August 1944.
3.2. MacArthur Returns
3.2.1. General Douglas MacArthur's troops began their own campaign in the southwest Pacific. The campaign began by invading Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, east of New Guinea, in August 1942.
3.2.2. August 1942. It continued until early 1944, when MacArthur’s troops finally captured enough islands to surround the main Japanese base in the region.
3.2.2.1. Japanese base in the region. In response, the Japanese withdrew their ships and aircraft from the base, although they left 100,000 troops behind to hold the island.
3.2.3. Worried that the navy’s advance across the central Pacific was leaving him behind, MacArthur ordered his forces to leap nearly 600 miles (966 km) to capture the Japanese base at Hollandia on the north coast of New Guinea.
3.2.3.1. Shortly after securing New Guinea, MacArthur’s troops seized the island of Morotai—the last stop before the Philippines.
3.2.4. To take back the Philippines, the United States assembled an enormous invasion force.
3.2.4.1. more than 700 ships
3.2.4.2. more than 160,000 troops
3.2.5. To stop the American invasion, the Japanese sent four aircraft carriers toward the Philippines from the north and secretly dispatched another fleet to the west.
3.2.5.1. Believing the Japanese carriers were leading the main attack, most of the American carriers protecting the invasion left Leyte Gulf and headed north to stop them.
3.2.5.2. Seizing their chance, the Japanese warships to the west raced through the Philippine Islands into Leyte Gulf and ambushed the remaining American ships.
3.2.6. The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle in history.
3.2.6.1. first time that the Japanese used kamikaze attacks.
3.2.6.1.1. Kamikaze pilots would deliberately crash their planes into American ships, killing themselves but also inflicting severe damage.
3.2.7. Luckily for the Americans, just as their situation was becoming desperate, the Japanese commander, believing more American ships were on the way, ordered a retreat.
3.2.7.1. Although the Japanese fleet had retreated, the campaign to recapture the Philippines from the Japanese was long and grueling.
3.2.7.1.1. More than 80,000 Japanese were killed.
3.2.7.1.2. fewer than 1,000 surrendered.
3.2.7.1.3. more than 100,000 Filipino civilians dead.