HIST 2112 1ST Edition Lecture 18 Outline of Last Lecture I 1939 Germans occupy Czechoslovakia and German area of Lithuania II Neutrality Acts III IV V VI VII June 1940 Fall of France 1941 Japanese invade French Indochina December 7 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor Second Front Battle of Stalingrad Outline of Current Lecture VIII D Day IX Battle of the Bulge Nov Dec 1944 X XI XII XIII February 1945 Concessions to Stalin in Eastern Europe May 7 1945 Potsdam July August 1945 Atomic Bomb Current Lecture The End of World War II D Day D Day the Allied invasion of Northern Europe on June 6th 1944 opened up a second front that forced Hitler to send forces west which took pressure off the Russians The greatest seaborne invasion in history was aimed at 80 kilometers of mostly flat sandy beach along the Normandy coast British Canadian and American soldiers along with smaller numbers of French and Poles succeeded in establishing a beachhead less than half of the invading force was American These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute It was not a turning point in the war as it occurred long after Germany had been forced onto the defensive and because it was much smaller in scale than battles such as Stalingrad but D Day certainly did speed up the process Hitler had prepared for Allies to attack at the narrowest part of the channel and was sure the invasion would be at the Pas de Calais The element of surprise gave the Allies a huge advantage Battle of the Bulge Nov Dec 1944 A battle during World War II in December 1944 von Rundstedt launched a powerful counteroffensive in the densely forested region at Ardennes and caught the Allies by surprise Most people were convinced the war was over and the German loss was inevitable Not enough troops were deployed for US 83 000 men vs 200 000 men Became the costliest battle in terms of casualties for the United States It was the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II The German losses in the battle were critical in several respects the last of the German reserves were now gone the Luftwaffe had been shattered and the remaining German forces in the West were being pushed back to the defenses of the Siegfried Line February 1945 Concessions to Stalin in Eastern Europe FDR agrees to concessions to Stalin in Eastern Europe in exchange for Soviet Union FDR wants Russians to bear some of the burden from the war money material lives and wanted the Soviet Union to enter the war with Japan Stalin agrees Many Americans considered the agreements of the Yalta Conference were a sellout encouraging Soviet expansion of influence May 7 1945 Hitler commits suicide in German Bunker with mistress and several other higher commanders Germany surrenders Potsdam July August 1945 Last wartime conference held in Potsdam Germany FDR died that previous April Harry S Truman the vice president is now president Truman announces new weapon at Potsdam and warns Japanese to surrender Japanese do not surrender Had previously been using fire bombs B 29s regularly drop fire bombs Weapon was an expensive long term project Scientist show regret after its creation However the cons of not using it were o The earliest invasion of Japan could be maybe November o 100 000 1 million US causalities predicted if US physically invaded Japan Atomic Bomb August 6 uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima August 8 plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki August 15 Japan surrenders Japan was trying to surrender to the Russians before the Americans dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs Their only condition was that they could keep their emperor in some sort of power Heaviest causalities in WWII were taken by China Japanese tortured Chinese prisoners