World War II

D

17

Allied Objectives in Germany

Advancing at times over 80 km (over 50 mi) a day, the U.S. First and Ninth armies closed an encirclement around the industrial heart of Germany, the Ruhr, on April 1. They trapped 325,000 German troops in the pocket. The British Second Army crossed the Weser River, halfway between the Rhine and the Elbe rivers, on April 5. On April 11 the Ninth Army reached the Elbe near Magdeburg and the next day took a bridgehead on the east side, thereby putting itself within striking distance (120 km/75 mi) of Berlin.

The Ninth Army’s arrival on the Elbe raised a question of a “race for Berlin.” The British, especially Churchill and Montgomery, and some Americans contended that Berlin was the most important objective in Germany because the world, and the German people especially, would regard the forces that took Berlin as the real victors in the war. Eisenhower, supported by the JCS, insisted that, militarily, Berlin was not worth the possible cost of taking it, and a junction with the Russians could be made just as well farther south in the vicinity of Leipzig and Dresden. Moreover, he believed Nazi diehards were going to take refuge in a redoubt in the Bavarian mountains, and he wanted, therefore, to direct the main weight of his American forces into south Germany.

The Soviet front, meanwhile, had remained stationary on the Odra River since February, which raised another question. The postwar Soviet explanation was that their flanks on the north and south were threatened and had to be cleared. The sequence of events after February 1945 indicates that Stalin did not believe the British and Americans could cross Germany as fast as they did and, consequently, assumed he would have ample time to complete his conquest of eastern Europe before heading into central Germany. Although he told Eisenhower differently, he obviously did not regard Berlin as unimportant. In the first week of April, his armies went into a whirlwind redeployment for a Berlin offensive.

D

18

The Final Battles in Europe

Hitler’s last, faint hope, strengthened briefly by Roosevelt’s death on April 12, was for a falling out between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. The East-West alliance was, in fact, strained, but the break would not come in time to benefit Nazi Germany. On April 14 and 16 the U.S. Fifth and British Eighth armies launched attacks that brought them to the Po River in a week. The Soviet advance toward Berlin began on April 16. The U.S. Seventh Army captured Nürnberg, the site of Nazi Party rallies in the 1930s, on April 20. Four days later Soviet armies closed a ring around Berlin. The next day the Soviet Fifth Guards Army and the U.S. First Army made contact at Torgau on the Elbe River northeast of Leipzig, and Germany was split into two parts. In the last week of the month, organized resistance against the Americans and British practically ceased, but the German troops facing east battled desperately to avoid falling into Soviet captivity.

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D

19

The German Surrender

Hitler decided to await the end in Berlin, where he could still manipulate what was left of the command apparatus. Most of his political and military associates chose to leave the capital for places in north and south Germany likely to be out of the Soviet reach. On the afternoon of April 30 Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. As his last significant official act, he named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz to succeed him as chief of state.

Doenitz, who had been loyal to Hitler, had no course open to him other than surrender. His representative, General Alfred Jodl, signed an unconditional surrender of all German armed forces at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims early on May 7. By then the German forces in Italy had already surrendered (on May 2), as had those in Holland, north Germany, and Denmark (May 4). The U.S. and British governments declared May 8 V-E (Victory in Europe) Day. The full unconditional surrender took effect at one minute past midnight after a second signing in Berlin with Soviet participation.

D

20

The Defeat of Japan

Although Japan's position was hopeless by early 1945, an early end to the war was not in sight. The Japanese navy would not be able to come out in force again, but the bulk of the army was intact and was deployed in the home islands and China. The Japanese gave a foretaste of what was yet in store by resorting to kamikaze (Japanese, “divine wind”) attacks, or suicide air attacks, during the fighting for Luzon in the Philippines. On January 4-13, 1945, quickly trained kamikaze pilots flying obsolete planes had sunk 17 U.S. ships and damaged 50.

D20

a

Iwo Jima and Okinawa

While the final assault on Japan awaited reinforcements from Europe, the island-hopping approach march continued, first, with a landing on Iwo Jima (now Iwo To) on February 19. That small, barren island cost the lives of about 6,800 U.S. personnel (including about 6,000 Marines) before it was secured on March 16. Situated almost halfway between the Marianas and Tokyo, the island played an important part in the air war. Its two airfields provided landing sites for damaged B-29s and enabled fighters to give the bombers cover during their raids on Japanese cities.

On April 1 the U.S. Tenth Army, composed of four army and four marine divisions under General Simon B. Buckner, Jr., landed on Okinawa, 500 km (310 mi) south of the southernmost Japanese island, Kyūshū. The Japanese did not defend the beaches. They proposed to make their stand on the southern tip of the island, across which they had constructed three strong lines. The northern three-fifths of the island were secured in less than two weeks, the third line in the south could not be breached until June 14, and the fighting continued to June 21.

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