World War II

Article Outline

Introduction; The World After World War I; Military Operations; Cost of the War

Strategic Shift in the Pacific

U.S. forces landed on Saipan on June 15. The Americans had possession of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam by August 10, giving them the key to a strategy for ending the war. The islands could accommodate bases for the new American long-range bombers, the B-29 Superfortresses, which could reach Tokyo and the other main Japanese cities at least as well from the islands as they would have been able to from bases in China. Moreover, U.S. naval superiority in the Pacific was rapidly becoming sufficient to sustain an invasion of Japan itself across the open ocean. That invasion, however, would have to wait for the defeat of Germany and the subsequent release of ground troops from Europe for use in the Pacific. The regular bombing of Japan began in November 1944.

Although the shift in strategy raised some doubts about the need for the operations in the Carolines and Philippines, they went ahead as planned, with landings in the western Carolines at Peleliu (September 15), Ulithi (September 23), and Ngulu (October 16) and in the central Philippines on Leyte (October 20). The invasion of the Philippines brought the Japanese navy out in force for the last time in the war. In the 3-day Battle for Leyte Gulf (October 23-25), the outcome of which was at times more in doubt than the final result would seem to indicate, the Japanese lost 26 ships, including the giant battleship Musashi, and the Americans lost 7 ships.

The Air War in Europe

The main action against Germany during the fall of 1944 was in the air. Escorted by long-range fighters, particularly P-51 Mustangs, U.S. bombers hit industrial targets by day, while the German cities crumbled under British bombing by night. Hitler had responded by bombarding England, beginning in June, with V-1 flying bombs and in September with V-2 rockets; but the best launching sites, those in northwestern France and in Belgium, were lost in October. The effects of the Allied strategic bombing were less clear-cut than had been expected. The bombing did not destroy civilian morale, and German fighter plane and armored vehicle production reached their wartime peaks in the second half of 1944. On the other hand, iron and steel output dropped by half between September and December, and continued bombing of the synthetic oil plants, coupled with loss of the Ploieşti oil fields in Romania, severely limited the fuel that would be available for the tanks and planes coming off the assembly lines.

The shortening of the fronts on the east and the west and the late year lull in the ground fighting gave Hitler one more chance to create a reserve of about 25 divisions. He resolved to use them offensively against the British and Americans by cutting across Belgium to Antwerp in an action similar to the sweep through the Ardennes that had brought the British and French to disaster at Dunkerque in May 1940.

The Battle of the Bulge

The German Ardennes offensive, soon to be known to the Allies as the Battle of the Bulge (see Bulge, Battle of the), began on December 16. The Americans were taken completely by surprise. They put up a strong resistance, however, and were able to hold the critical road centers of Saint-Vith and Bastogne. The German effort was doomed after December 23, when good flying weather allowed the overwhelming Allied air superiority to make itself felt. Nevertheless, it was not until the end of January that the last of the 80-km (50-mi) deep “bulge” in the Allied lines was eliminated. The Allied advance into Germany was not resumed until February.

The Yalta Conference

By then the Soviet armies were on the Odra (Oder) River, 60 km (35 mi) east of Berlin. They had smashed the German line on the Wisła River and reached the Baltic coast east of Danzig (Gdańsk) in January 1945 and had a tight hold on the Odra by February 3. Stalin would meet Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta (see Yalta Conference) in Crimea (February 4-11) with all of Poland in his pocket and with Berlin and, for all anybody then knew, most of Germany as well within his grasp. At Yalta, Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan within three months after the German surrender in return for territorial concessions in the Far East.

The Americans and British, as was their custom, disagreed on how to proceed against Germany. In a meeting at Malta shortly before the Yalta conference, Montgomery and the British members of the CCS argued for a fast single thrust by Montgomery's army group across the north German plain to Berlin. To sustain such a thrust, they wanted the bulk of Allied supplies to go to Montgomery, which meant the American armies would have to stay on the defensive. Eisenhower’s plan, which prevailed, was to give Montgomery first priority but also keep the American armies on the move.

Crossing the Rhine

The first stage for all of the Allied armies was to reach the Rhine River. To accomplish that, they had to break through the west wall in the south and cross the Ruhr (Dutch Roer) River on the north. The Germans had flooded the Ruhr Valley by opening dams. After waiting nearly two weeks for the water to subside, the U.S. Ninth and First armies crossed the Ruhr on February 23.

In early March, the armies closed up to the Rhine. The bridges were down everywhere—everywhere, that is, except at the small city of Remagen, where units of the U.S. First Army captured the Ludendorff railroad bridge on March 7. By March 24, when Montgomery sent elements of the British Second Army and the U.S. Ninth Army across the river, the U.S. First Army was occupying a sprawling bridgehead between Bonn and Koblenz. On March 22 the U.S. Third Army had seized a bridgehead south of Mainz. Thus, the whole barrier of the river was broken, and Eisenhower ordered the armies to strike east on a broad front.

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Strategic Shift in the Pacific

The Air War in Europe

The Battle of the Bulge

The Yalta Conference

Crossing the Rhine