Chapter 18 World War II: Americans at War

Name Class Date

Social Studies – 8

Chapter 18 – World War II: Americans at War Section 2 – Retaking Europe

Reading Objectives

 Where did Americans join the struggle against the Axis?  How did the war in the Soviet Union change from 1941 to 1943?  What role did air power play in the war in Europe?  Why did the invasion of Western Europe succeed?  What events marked the end of the war in Europe?

Americans Join the Struggle

 In 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt met in secret to discuss American involvement in the war. They created a declaration of principles to guide them in the years ahead called the ______. After the war, this charter would form the basis for the ______.

 The United States entered the war in December 1941, a critical time for the Allies.

 The Battle of the Atlantic: At sea, Britain and the United States struggled to ______. German U-boats, or submarines, sailed out from ports in France and attacked and destroyed Allied merchant ships.

 The North Africa campaign: From 1940 to 1943, the Allies and Axis battled in ______, with neither side gaining much of an advantage, until Allied armies finally trapped the Axis forces. About 240,000 Germans and Italians surrendered.

 The invasion of Italy: In 1943, U.S. troops under General George S. Patton invaded the island of Sicily with British forces. Italians lost faith in ______leadership, and he was overthrown. Italy’s new government surrendered to the Allies and declared war on Germany in October 1943. The Allied advance was stalled by fierce German resistance, but Germans in northern Italy finally surrendered in April 1945.

War in the Soviet Union

 Hitler, in an effort to make Germany self-sufficient, planned to seize the farm lands of the Ukraine. He broke ______with Stalin and attacked the Soviet Union.

 The German advance (1941–1942): In June 1941, more than 3 million Axis troops crossed the Soviet border. Stalin asked for and received American aid through the ______. But, by autumn 1941, German armies threatened the capital, Moscow, and the historic city of Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg).

 The Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943): By October 1941, the ______put a stop to the German advance, which did not resume until the summer of 1942. The Red Army made its stand at ______, a major rail and industrial center on the Volga River.

 The Germans began a ______- month firebombing campaign.  In November, the Soviets took advantage of the harsh winter to launch a counterattack. The German army was soon surrounded in the ruined city with no supplies and no hope of escape.

 On January 31, 1943, more than ______surviving Germans surrendered.

 Germany’s seemingly unstoppable offensive was over and this proved to be the ______of the war in the East.

The Allied Air War

 The British Royal Air Force (RAF) had been fending off attacks from the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, and ______on German cities.

 However, the RAF abandoned attempts to pinpoint targets and began to scatter large numbers of bombs over a large area, a technique called ______. As a result, German cities suffered heavy damage.

 Allied bombing of Germany intensified after the ______entered the war. More than 40,000 civilians died in four attacks on Hamburg, Germany, in the summer of 1943.

 By 1944, British and American commanders were conducting ______-American planes bombing by day and RAF planes bombing at night.

 At its height, some ______planes took part in this campaign.

The Invasion of Western Europe

 General George Marshall, FDR’s Chief of Staff, wanted to invade Western Europe - specifically German forces occupying France. The invasion, code-named ______, would be launched from Great Britain. General ______would be the supreme commander of the invasion forces.

 D-Day: On ______, the invasion of Western Europe began. Heavy casualties were suffered, but by late July, nearly 2 million ______troops were in France. On August 25, 1944, Paris was liberated from German occupation.

 Battle of the Bulge: In December 1944, Germany launched a counterattack in ______and ______. They pushed back the U.S. First Army, forming a bulge in the Allied Line. The resulting clash came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

 The Battle of the Bulge was the ______in ______during World War II and the largest battle ever fought by the United States Army. In the end the casualties were staggering on both sides, and most Nazi leaders realized that the war was lost.

The War in Europe Ends

 In March 1945, American ground forces crossed the ______River and moved toward the German capital of ______from the west.

 Soviet troops continued to fight their way to Berlin from the east. This fighting resulted in the deaths of some 11 million Soviet and 3 million German soldiers - more than ______of the soldiers killed in the entire war. The ______finally reached Berlin in late April 1945.  Hitler ______in Berlin on April 30, 1945, refusing to flee the city. On May 8, Germany’s remaining troops surrendered. Americans at home celebrated ______(Victory in Europe Day).

 The Yalta Conference: In February, 1945, months before the fall of Berlin, ______, ______, and ______met at Yalta in the Soviet Union, to discuss the shape of the postwar world.

 The leaders agreed: 1. To split Germany into four zones, each under the control of a major Ally, including France. 2. They planned a similar division of Berlin. 3. Stalin promised to allow free elections in the nations of Eastern Europe that his army had liberated from the Germans. 4. He also promised to enter the war against Japan. Stalin did not fulfill any of these promises.