Allied troops stormed a Normandy beach June 6, 1944.
In 1944 the Allied bombing campaign against Germany continued. The Allies captured Rome, Italy, on June 4. But these events were completely overshadowed by the massive invasion of Normandy, France, June 6, 1944. Its official name was Operation Overlord, but it is better known as D-Day.
D-Day marked the beginning of the end of the war in Western Europe. Allied commanders had been planning a massive invasion of France for two years. They knew they would be in for a tough fight.
A HUGE INVASION
The D-Day landings were a coordinated effort by Allied ground, sea, and air forces on five beaches in Normandy. The beaches were code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Shortly after midnight June 6, Allied planes dropped paratroops deep behind enemy lines to attack the German army from the rear. The paratroops waited silently for daybreak, when the invasion from the sea would begin. At 6:30 a.m. the first Allied troops left their landing craft and waded 300 feet (91 meters) to Utah Beach.
It is estimated that more than 4,400 Allied troops died on D-Day, with thousands more wounded or missing. The heaviest casualties came at Omaha Beach, where German soldiers on bluffs above the beach picked off many Allied troops before they could make it to shore. But Allied leaders had feared that casualties would be much higher. Despite the enormous loss of life, the invasion was considered a success.
Battles continued throughout the summer as the Allies advanced. Paris was liberated August 25, and in September Allied soldiers reached the borders of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The Allies also launched an invasion of southern France in August that forced the German army to retreat.
GERMANY TRIES TO REGROUP
Germany began a major offensive in Belgium and Luxembourg at the end of 1944. The Germans wanted to split the Allied forces and capture the port city of Antwerp, Belgium, through which supplies were reaching the Allied armies. Its official name was the Ardennes Offensive, but it is better known as the Battle of the Bulge. The German attack had created a bulge in the Allied front line.
The battle began December 16, 1944, and lasted more than a month. It was the largest land battle fought by the Americans in World War II, involving about 500,000 U.S. troops. At first the Germans were successful. Heavy snow and freezing temperatures prevented the Allied air forces from attacking German tanks. The Americans ran their trucks every half-hour to make sure they would start and even urinated on frozen weapons to thaw them. But by January the Americans had the upper hand, and the Germans were forced to retreat. About 80,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded, missing, or captured. Estimated German casualties were between 60,000 and 100,000.
VICTORY IN EUROPE
After the Battle of the Bulge, the Allies entered Germany and crossed the Rhine River the following spring. The German army’s position in the east wasn’t any better. The Germans were in almost continual retreat from Soviet attacks throughout 1944. In the fall the Soviet army advanced into Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland. By April 1945 the Soviets surrounded the German capital of Berlin. In the west the Allies marched relentlessly into the heart of Germany. His country in ruins, Hitler committed suicide April 30. The official surrender was signed in early May. The war in Europe was over.
In 1944 the United States had launched a major offensive in the central Pacific, capturing the Gilbert, Marshall, and Mariana islands, as well as Guam. The island of Saipan in the Marianas was used as a base from which to launch air raids against the Japanese mainland. The U.S. also invaded the Philippines, defeating Japanese forces there the next year.
In February 1945 the Americans landed on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, which was captured with a tremendous loss of life. Almost 7,000 Americans died and more than 19,000 were wounded. An estimated 23,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. U.S. Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz declared after the battle “among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”10
U.S. troops landed April 1 on the island of Okinawa, only 340 miles (547 km) south of Japan. After nearly three months of bloody fighting, the Americans took control of the island June 21. About 110,000 Japanese soldiers were killed, along with 45,000 civilians. The Americans lost about 12,500 men.
DROPPING THE BOMB
The stubborn resistance of the Japanese was an important consideration when the Allies planned their next move. The U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb August 6 on the city of Hiroshima, immediately killing about 70,000 people. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. The pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, remembered, “A bright light filled the plane. The first shock wave hit us. We were eleven and a half miles slant range from the atomic explosion, but the whole airplane cracked and crinkled from the blast. We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud … mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall.”11
NAVAJO CODE TALKERS
Spying was important to both sides during World War II. The Americans cracked the Japanese Imperial Navy’s code early in the war, allowing them to read secret messages. The Japanese also broke some of the American codes. But one code was never broken—the Navajo American Indian language. The Navajo language was complicated, had no written alphabet, and at the time was understood by fewer than 30 non-Navajos. Differences in the tone of the speaker’s voice or the way a word was pronounced could completely change the meaning. About 400 Navajo served the U.S. Marines as code talkers during Pacific battles.
Soviet forces invaded Japanese-held Manchuria in northern China August 8. The next day the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing about 50,000. Harry Truman, who became U.S. president following Roosevelt’s death in April, had been told of the tremendous destructive power of the atomic bomb. But he also knew that huge casualties were expected on both sides during an invasion of Japan. The decision to use the atomic bombs was at least partly based on the desire to save American lives. The Japanese government agreed to end the war August 15.
Even before Truman’s official announcement of the war’s end, people were celebrating all over the United States. Life magazine commented that Americans seemed to feel “as if joy had been rationed and saved up for the three years, eight months, and seven days since Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.”12 In New York the largest crowd in the history of Times Square gathered to celebrate. Similar celebrations occurred in other Allied countries. The official Japanese surrender took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay September 2, Victory over Japan Day. World War II was over.
