Victory in Europe was secured primarily by attrition aided significantly by Hitler's ill-fated decision to invade Russia on June 22, 1941. German victory in Europe and Russia was predicated upon quick victories because Germany simply didn't have the resources, human and material, to continually fight and supply drawn-out conflicts on multiple fronts. Initially, Germany secured those victories with brilliant generals implementing winning strategies. But time was against them. Russia did not provide the quick victory Hitler needed after the Battle of Stalingrad ended with a German defeat in January of 1941. By the end of 1941 with German forces in full retreat from Russia and America entering the war on the Allied side, Germany could resist, and did so for 3 more years, but could not win. Their only chance was to develop a super-weapon such as an atomic bomb but they ran out of time.
Allied strategy of fighting a ground war through N. Africa and then up through Italy's boot before the final invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1944 ( D-Day) was largely a war of attrition. A concurrent strategy of destroying Germany’s Luftwaffe and maintaining total control of the skies had devastating effects on German factories as well as on civilian populations.
Stalin complained fiercely that the Allied strategy was to use up Russia's resources by delaying the D-Day invasion as to have a weakened Russia in Post-War Europe and he may have been correct. Caught between a pincer movement of Allied forces with massive resources from America and Russia, the war had but one conclusion.
In the Pacific, it was a brutal battle of taking back territory island by island. Once close enough to operate bombing missions over the Japanese mainland, victory again was a matter of time against a stubborn and determined enemy. A full-scale invasion of Japan was planned and estimated to incur over a million Allied casualties. But the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 made the invasion unnecessary as Japan surrendered soon after.
When faced with a two-front war in World War Two, the United States and Great Britain decided to concentrate resources first on the European Theater, and, after defeating Germany and Italy, to bring all of their forces to bear on Japan. Even with this commitment to fight in Europe, the Allies were afraid of landing troops in German-occupied France, and fought the Nazis and Fascist Italians first in North Africa in 1942, then in Sicily, and then on the Italian peninsula itself. While these campaigns took place, the Western Allies were gaining experience and stockpiling troops and material for the watershed landing on Normandy's beaches that took place June 6, 1944. By the end of 1944 Allied troops had pushed the German army almost entirely back into Germany, and the last-ditch German efforts at the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 came up short of their objectives. The United States, with Great Britain and the Soviet Union, accepted the unconditional surrender of Germany in May of 1945 to end World War Two in Europe.
The Pacific Theater was much larger, reaching from Alaska's Aleutian Island to Papua New Guinea just north of Australia. Aircraft carriers proved to be very important in the fight to control the ocean, as aircraft proved capable of bombing not just land fortifications but also of sinking battleships and even other aircraft carriers. In the Pacific, the United States used island hopping to advance closer to Japan's Home Islands while at the same time avoiding Japanese strongholds such as Rabaul. Some islands that were captured by the US were called unsinkable aircraft carriers, showing just how important air power was in the Pacific. Air power proved decisive when the US firebombed Tokyo and later used atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, convincing the Japanese to surrender in August 1945 without the Allies having to invade Japan proper.
The United States and the Allies implemented different plans to achieve victory in Europe and in Japan. In Europe, the Allies decided to conquer North Africa before beginning the invasion of Europe. After North Africa was liberated, the Allies moved to control the Italian Peninsula, which was accomplished in 1944 after nearly a year of fighting. The Allies also worked to gain control over the Atlantic Ocean. By using convoys and new technology such as radar, the Allies were able to gain the upper hand in the Atlantic Ocean, which made it easier to get troops and supplies to Europe. The Allies then planned to invade France in order to free it from German control. Some of the toughest battles in Europe came when the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. Eventually, the Allies liberated France and moved into Germany, eventually leading to Germany’s surrender in May 1945.
In the Pacific, the Allied strategy, which was mainly carried out by the United States, was to recapture islands that were lost to Japan earlier in the war. This strategy, known as island hopping, enabled the Allies to regain these lost islands one at a time, thereby moving closer and closer to Japan. Eventually, the Allies began to bomb Japan, and after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to World War II.
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