Description
As 1941 came to a close Hitler hoped that the year 1942 would bring Germany as much good fortune as 1941. Despite his hopes, Germany's victories diminished considerably during 1942. The United States entered the war then, boosting the Allies' morale and strength. Just after Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt met to develop a joint war policy, they came up with a plan to weaken Germany on two fronts. In late 1942 the Allies began to turn the tide of the war in both the Mediterranean and on the Eastern Front. By 1943, the Allies began secretly building a force in Great Britain and their plan was to attack the Germans across the English Channel. As the Allied forces were moving in on Germany from the west, the Soviet army was advancing towards Germany from the east, Hitler now faced a war on two fronts. Germany decided to counterattack in the west in hopes that a victory would split American and British forces and break up their supply line. Although the Allies were caught of guard at first, they eventually pushed the Germans back and won. On May 8, 1945 Germany surrendered and the Allies won victory over Europe. Although the war was over in Europe, the Allies were still fighting Japan in the Pacific. The Japanese put up a good fight but on August 6, 1945 President Harry Truman decided to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and finally on September 2, 1945 the Japanese surrendered and the war was officially over, the Allies had won.
Articles
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-stalingrad
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/invasion-of-sicily
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005177
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005158
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-the-bulge
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/ff7_veday.shtml
Primary Source Documents
Maps
The Battle of the Bulge was when the Allied forces attacked Germany from the west as the Soviets attacked Germany from the east. Germany used tanks to try to defeat American defenses along a front in the Ardennes. The map shows German movements and the area this took place.
This map shows the D-Day Invasion in 1944 against German occupied France. The Allies set up a dummy army to trick Hitler, but on June 6, the Allies attacked Normandy.
After Pearl Harbor, the US made internment camps where they made all Japanese citizens go stay in isolation. Each red dot on the map is a Japanese internment camp in the US.
Here is the North African Campaign. The red lines are Allied forces movements, green lines are the Axis defense, and the black lines are Axis reinforcements.
Aug 23-25, 1944, The allies marching into Paris, liberating France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
Videos
An interview with a D-Day survivor.
A D-Day survivor tells what he remembers about the invasion.
This video is not on youtube so click here to watch it.
or click the link
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-day/videos/dday-invasion
or click the link
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-day/videos/dday-invasion
The video explains what happened on D-Day.