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