The Western Front

1. The Western Front By: Sadie Abler Sam Johnson Maria MartinZach Blair

2. Facts to write down • 1)Strategic bombing caused the German Luftwaffe to become almost nonexistent. • 2)Aerial bombings of the beaches before D-Day were a catastrophic failure. • 3)D-Day was the biggest amphibious landing in history. • 4)The Italian campaign was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war. • 5)The Omaha beach landing almost met failure. • 6)The reason the Allies were so successful in the air war and with armor was because of mass production. • 7)Kamikaze means “Divine Wind”. • 8)The supreme commander of Allied forces in WW2 was Dwight D. Eisenhower. • 9)The Germans and Russians once had a peace treaty, but the Germans attacked the Russians; ending it. • 10)Churchill called Italy the “soft underbelly” of Europe.

3. Italian Campaign • The Allied landing on Sicily had been up to that point the biggest amphibious landing. • Once on the beaches American and British troops met no resistance, but because of inexperienced coxswain controllers, over half of the landing craft was damaged or sunk because of the 9 foot swells, and inexperience. • More men died from drowning than from enemy fire that day. The idea was to go from the bottom of Italy all the way up to Germany, Sicily being the first step. American and British forces were able to get about half way up Italy before getting stopped by the SS. Hitler’s fanatical military that would fight to the death, no surrendering.

4. After Sicily was captured, Italy went into a tailspin • The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel and a few of his generals overthrew Mussolini. • Soon after German troops rushed down and captured the northern half of Italy. • Allied forces, battling the fanatical SS troops took 5 months to push them off of High, heavily fortified terrain at Cassino, and break out of Anzio. • At first instead of attacking Cassino, Allied forces instead launched a landing at Anzio which was behind the enemy front line • Instead of retreating the German forces surrounded the Allies. • Two weeks after the Allied victory at Cassino and Anzio, Rome was freed.

5. The Italian campaign was one of the deadliest, having more than 300,000 casualties. As Napoleon once said, as the country Italy is shaped like a boot, the best way to occupy it is to not enter at the toe.

6. France* • D-Day took an extreme amount of planning, and it still didn’t go as well as it should have. • Some of the beaches didn’t have much resistance, but then at Omaha, the Americans were nearly defeated. • By time the Americans broke through the German defenses, other British/Canadian forces were several miles inland.

7. Eastern Front • Russia wasoriginally in an alliance with Germany, and allowed Germany to come into a part of Russia. Then, Hitler thought he could defeat the Russians and secure the Balkans and their oil that the Reich desperately needed. • That plan was a failure, and intense fighting began between German and Russian Forces. • Once the intense stalemate was broken, the Germans started a mass retreat, with the Russians hot on their tail.

8. Continued… • As the Russians followed the German retreat, they conscripted any able bodied man who they came across in villages into the Russian army. • By the time that the Germans were able to form a line, the Russians had gained so much ground that all of the German troops on the line knew that the end was coming. • After a few decisive early battles the Germans and Russians were in a stalemate. Over time the cold got to the German troops and morale lessened to the point when a major Russian assault with thousands of T-34’s and hundreds of thousands of troops; broke German moral and the Germans started their retreat.

9. The Pacific • The Japanese were a hard enemy to beat. All of them fought fanatically, and none of them surrendered. • Marines in the Pacific had to fight for every meter on almost every island they invaded, and as the Marines started to capture more and more islands, the Japanese got more desperate. • The campaign to recapture the Philippines started with Guadalcanal, Guadalcanal was a very costly Island, along with every single other island the Japanese controlled.

10. Leyte Gulf • The battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle in history. It also marked the introduction of the Japanese Kamikaze which means “divine wind”. It refers to the storm that destroyed the Mongol fleet in the thirteenth century. The Kamikaze is a plane that is intentionally flown into a ship to cause immense damage, at the cost of the pilots life. The Kamikaze was deadly psychological weapon.

11. Continued… • After surrounding the main Japanese base in the region, the Japanese withdrew their ships and aircraft from the region but left 100,000 troops. At the end of the Philippine campaign over 80,000 Japanese died and less than 1,000 surrendered.

12. Air war over Europe • After the battle of Britain the British started an air war against the Germans. But because of German anti-air batteries and the German Luftwaffe, the bombings only occurred at night which was largely ineffective. • When the Americans entered the air war, we brought with us the B-17 flying fortress, the idea was that the bomber could protect itself from the German planes. It was a partial success but it wasn’t the greatest plan.

13. Continued… • Later in the war America came out with the P-51 Mustang, a single seat fighter capable of escorting the bombers all the way. The introduction of the Mustang brought a lot of help and allowed the bombers to be more effective. By D-day the German Luftwaffe had been severely crippled and could not replace its losses; ensuring Allied air control

14. D-Day was the biggest amphibious landing in history • D-day, the allies had many different ideas about weakening the German beach defenses on and leading up to D-day. Ultimately what they did was bomb it leading up to, and the heavy artillery was to fire right over the heads of the landing craft and stopped a minute before landing. The naval shelling worked only slightly, the vast majority of bunkers survived it with little damage. The air bombings were a mass failure, not a single air dropped bomb hit the intended target. And all the bombs landed to far inland.

15. Continued… • Several hours before the landings allied paratroopers jumped behind the beaches and were to A: Capture important crossroads and cut telephone lines. B: Capture specific bridges to provide a point for allied armor to cross, and C: Destroy German artillery batteries that could shell the beach heads. • The paratroopers that dropped in were told that by the end of the day they should be relieved by troops from the beaches, sufficient to say that didn’t happen. The paratroopers ended up staying for quite a while.

16. Continued… • To land Allied armor on the beaches the British came up with what is call the DD Sherman (Duplex Drive tank), which was basically a swimming tank. The idea was a good one, but they got easily swamped out by surf. The Allies also had large landing craft that could carry armor to the shore

17. 1)Strategic bombing caused the German _______ to become almost nonexistent • Tactics • Advancement • Luftwaffe • Technology

18. 2)Aerial bombings of the beaches before D-Day were a catastrophic failure • True • False • Magic Bananas!

19. 3)D-Day was the biggest amphibious landing in history • True • ERMAHGERD • False

20. 4)The ________ was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war • Italian campaign • Twister from the Wizard of OZ • War on the Western Front • Holocaust

21. 5)The Omaha beach landing almost met failure • Wut? • True • False

22. 6)The reason the Allies were so successful in the air war and with armor was because of_______ • Women • Support back Home • Big Bombs • Mass Production

23. 7) Kamikaze means_____ • “Get Er Dun” • “Divine Wind” • “Autobots, Roll Out!” • “I’M MAD NOW!!”

24. 8)The supreme commander of Allied forces in WW2 was_______ • Dwight D. Eisenhower • Leyte E. Don • Obama • Arnold Schwarzenegger

25. 9)The Germans and Russians had a peace treaty, that never ended during the war • True • False • 4?

26. 10) ____ called Italy the “soft underbelly” of Europe • Germans • Russians • Churchill • Nords