THE END OF
WORLD WAR IIThe Battle of the Bulge
“Island Hopping”FDR / TRUMANThe Atomic Age
Battle of the Bulge Fall 1944 – Winter 1945
• After D-Day success recapturing France, Allied advance stalls
• German surprise offensive through Ardennes forest in Belgium
• Allied line “bulges” out into France, but does not break
• Last stand of Germany
Fighting in the Ardennes
Living through the Battle of the Bulge
Collapse of the Third Reich
• Allies withstand Battle of the Bulge on Western Front
• Soviets withstand sieges of Moscow and Stalingrad on Eastern Front
• Germany pushed back to its pre-war borders
• Nazi death camps being exposed in Poland
Germany Surrenders – May 1945
• Allies storm into Germany, Russians reach Berlin first
• April 28th Mussolini executed• April 30th, Hitler marries Eva
Braun in underground bunker
• Hitler / Braun commit suicide
• Other Nazi Officers also commit suicide – Goebbels, Goring
• May 2, Berlin falls to the Russians
• May 7, Germany signs unconditional surrender
• V-E Day (Victory in Europe)• Hitler’s 1,000 year Reich
(Empire) over after 12 years
FDR DIES
• Roosevelt elected to FOURTH term (16 years)
• April 12, 1945 FDR dies from cerebral hemorrhage
• Did not live to see the end of the war
• Truman takes over Presidency with FDR death
HARRY S. TRUMAN
• FDR’s Vice President• Not elected (yet)• 33rd President
(Democrat)• Given a rough time
since he could never live up to FDR
• “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the Kitchen”
Fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific
• “Island Hopping” – Fighting Japanese one island at a time
• Begin with Island of Guadalcanal
• Fierce Japanese response
• Both armies suffer heavy losses
• Japanese culture: Greatest shame to be defeated or surrender
THE KAMIKAZE
• Self Sacrifice (Suicide Mission)
• Use airplane itself as the weapon – crash plane into target
• Regarded as Highest honor possible
• Terrified American Army
More Fighting1943 -1945
• Fighting in some of the hottest, mosquito infested swamps in the world
• Islands of Midway, Wake, New Guinea, Guam, Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa
• Attacks led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Invasion of Okinawa Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945
• Island needed to stage invasion of Japan
• Heavy casualties & fierce fighting demonstrate resolve of Japanese
• 50,000 USA, 140,000 Japanese casualties
• Siege lasts until late June, 1945
The Atomic Bomb
• Oct. 1939 – Albert Einstein tells FDR of Germany’s nuclear fission science
• “The Manhattan Project” – Top Secret
• $2 billion spent, 120,000 workers in Los Alamos, New Mexico
• J. Robert Oppenheimer chief scientist
The BombingAugust 6, 1945
• Truman Decision to Drop
• “Enola Gay” plane drops “Little Boy” bomb over Hiroshima, Japan
• 4 square miles of the city wiped out
• 60,000 killed instantly• August 9, “Fatman”
bomb dropped over Nagasaki
“Fatman and Little Boy”
Enola Gay Bomber Plane
Hiroshima Damage
Hiroshima Before
Hiroshima After
Japanese Surrender
• Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepts on USS Missouri
• USA will write Japan’s Constitution
Why Drop the Bomb???• Invasion of Japan
would take too long and cost too much
• 500,000 US troops would be killed
• Japanese would fight to the death
• 1945 War Mindset: “Japs are savage, ruthless, and merciless”
• Damage extent not known
• Show World We Have This Power – Make Russia fear USA
Tokyo, Japan
World War II Costs
• 70 million fought – 45 million died
• USA: 408,000 dead
• Russia: 6 million military deaths, 10 million civilian deaths, 25 million left homeless
• $1 trillion dollars spent militarily - $2 trillion dollars in property damage