Essential Question: What were the strategies involved in fighting a war in Asia and Europe?
Do you think the US was justified in using the bomb against the Japanese?
I. Fighting the War in North Africa and Europe (see map)
A. Early months of US involvement in war discouraging
1. Germany rolled into North Africa
2. German submarines sunk 7 million tons of Allied shipping
B. Campaigns in North Africa and Italy
1. Allies (United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union) all agreed to pursue Europe-first strategy
2. FDR agreed with the British on an invasion of N. Africa (Nov.
1942)
a. North Africa liberated in Apr and May 1943
3. Allies then turned to invasion of Sicily and Italy
C. Operation OVERLORD (June 1944)
1. Turned tide of battle in the west
2. Within three months, Allied troops had entered Paris
3. As war wound down, horrors of Holocaust became known
4. Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945
II. The Pacific Theater (see map)
A. Early war in Pacific went Japan�s way
1. Singapore, the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island fell easily
B. Seizing the initiative
1. Battle of Midway was costly for Allies, but Japanese were stopped cold in June 1942
2. Allied advances continued at Guadalcanal and the Solomon
Islands and succeeded in seizing the initiative from the Japanese
C. Pacific strategy
1. U.S. decided to go after smaller Pacific islands (island
hopping) on their way to Japan
D. Atomic power and Japanese surrender
1. Atomic bombs used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki
a. Japan agreed to surrender on 15 Aug