European Theater of War
Storyboard Text
- THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN
- The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, included the capitulation of German forces still fighting the battle outside Berlin on May 8th-9th, following the unconditional surrender of all German forces. Resulting in Soviet victory, and the suicide of Adolf Hitler and deaths of other high-ranking Nazi officials, the battle marked the end of WWII in Europe and the official fall of Nazi Germany.
- YALTA CONFERENCE
- The Yalta Conference was a meeting of three World War II allies: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. The trio met in February 1945 in the resort city of Yalta, located along the Black Sea coast of the Crimean Peninsula. The “Big Three” Allied leaders discussed the post-war fate of defeated Germany and the rest of Europe, the terms of Soviet entry into the ongoing war in the Pacific against Japan and the formation and operation of the new United Nations.
- BATTLE OF BRITAIN
- The Battle of Britain was a turning point in World War II; if the RAF had not held off the Luftwaffe, Hitler would have likely moved forward with his Operation Sea Lion invasion of the British Isles. Germany needed to control the English Channel to invade Britain, and the battle prevented them from gaining that valuable control.
- The Battle of Britain in World War II was a fight between Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Luftwaffe (Nazi Germany’s air force) and was the first battle in history fought solely in the air. From July 10th through October 31st, 1940, pilots and support crews on both sides battled for control of airspace over Great Britain, Germany and the English Channel.
- THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD
- The Battle of Stalingrad was a brutal military campaign between Russian forces and those of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers during World War II. The battle is infamous as one of the largest, longest and bloodiest engagements in modern warfare: From August of 1942 through February of 1943, more than two million troops fought in close quarters – costing the lives of nearly two million people, including tens of thousands of Russian civilians.
- The loss at Stalingrad was the first failure of the war to be publicly acknowledged by Hitler. It put Hitler and the Axis powers on the defensive, and boosted Russian confidence as it continued to battle on the Eastern Front in World War II.
- THE D-DAY INVASION
- During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June of 1944 to August of 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the coast of France’s Normandy region. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
- THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
- The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 to January 16, 1945), the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War II, proved to be an unsuccessful attempt to push the Allies back from German home territory. The name Battle of the Bulge was appropriated from Winston Churchill’s optimistic description in May 1940 of the resistance that he mistakenly supposed was being offered to Hitler’s breakthrough in that area just before the Anglo-French collapse; the Germans were in fact overwhelmingly successful. The “bulge” refers to the wedge that the Germans drove into the Allied lines.
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