Hist Final

Front 1

Atlantic Wall 42-44

Back 1

Western wall of German fortification on French seaboard
Rommel-responsible for building fortification on french beaches
Obstacles, mines, heavy firearms, antitank guns, all along western front
Rommels asparagus-tele poles made to ruin gliders

Front 2

Operation Fortitude

Back 2

British Deception
Used obvious place to attack as a diversion (Pas-de-Calais)
Blew up fake tanks/jeeps and sent fake messages
One of the most successful acts of deception

Front 3

Operation Overlord June 6 44

Back 3

D-Day Utah Omaha Gold Sword Juno beaches stormed by allied attacks
US need perfect conditions-Full moon, low tide, good weather
Break in the weather that morning Eisenhower-"Let's go"
Took less than a day because of lack of tank reinforcement
Hitler sleeps through attack and only one able to call tanks in
Ike unsure if invasion would even work(note in pocket)

Front 4

Pas-de-Calais

Back 4

The piece of land closest to Britain in France
Opportune place for allies to attack and used as a diversion(op fortitude)

Front 5

Omaha Beach

Back 5

Deadliest beach on D-Day
Bradley in command considered pulling people off the beach
Killed over 3000 allied troops

Front 6

Normandy Hedgerows

Back 6

Bocague country filled with hedges
Used to mark boundries of farm land and such
Perfect for german defense
Rotten Kries(rats war) ambushed americans and they were stalling

Front 7

Operation Cobra 7 days after dday

Back 7

General Bradley's idea to send in saturated bombings of a road through the bocague country for 2 days
British and Canadien forces would preoccupy the Germans in Caen
Cleared path for allies through bocague

Front 8

Operation Valkeryie 1944

Back 8

Assassination attempt on Hitler
Bomb placed next to Hitler and did not kill him
5000 head officers were killed
Including Rommel who was forced to shoot himself

Front 9

Battle of the Falaise Pocket August 1944

Back 9

Gunther Von Kluge in charge of Army after Op Valkyrie-wishes to retreat but Hitler wants a counterattack
German offenses break through and form a salient in Allies defense
Allies able to close off the pocket and break through
Great loss for germans and Allies able to take back Paris
Ends Op overlord

Front 10

Battle of the Bulge dec 1944-jan 1945

Back 10

German offensive on Eastern front of allies
Last attempt for Hitler to keep allies out of germany
Siegfried line-last line of defense for germans on border
Plan was for germans to split allied attack in two and attack north and south
Problem was not luftwaffe and no gas
101st airbourne miraculously holds the city of Bastogne, a large transportation hub
Patton pees in Rhine River

Front 11

Bastogne

Back 11

Held by 101st airbourne during Battle of Bulge
Lasted without much food or supplies for a while
NUTS

Front 12

Battle of Kirsk July 1943

Back 12

Largest Tank battle in history
Germans attempt to break through salient at kursk caused by stalingrad
Soviet defenses constructed 8 rings of 250 km deep defense
6600 tanks used
Last hurrah of germans on eastern front

Front 13

VE day May 8 1945

Back 13

Victory in Europe
Third Reich surrenders
Hitler commits suicide during battle of berlin
Karl Donitz takes over
1000 year riech=12 years

Front 14

Strategic bombing

Back 14

Destruction of enemy in strategic points- military base, industry,harbors
Possible civilian casualties in some instances
German Blitz on Britain meant to demoralize but pumped them up
Controversial and in some cases only harmed civilians especially in Hamburg

Front 15

Firestorm

Back 15

Type of Strategic Bombing
Flares lit and dropped in the middle of a city
Bomber come in an destroy city
Firestorm would create a vacum of air and hurricane like winds to sweep people off the street
Did not do much damage to german forces but killed 40000 civilians in city of Hamburg

Front 16

Enigma machine

Back 16

Machine sent coded messages used by German forces
Worked like a coded type writer that needed to be preset to decode messages

Front 17

Ultra

Back 17

Codename for British intelligience on the Enigma machine
Helped win the war by decoding german messages and aided allies on many occasions

Front 18

Manhattan Project

Back 18

Top secret project to create atom bomb
Einstein immigrated from Germany and convinced Roosevelt to start project
Research started in U of Chi
Employed over 100,000 americans across the nation
Oppenheimer oversaw project
Gen. Groves oversaw military side
16 July 1945 Amagordo New Mexico Test
2 billion dollar project

Front 19

Office of Strategic Services

Back 19

American Version of British Intelligience
Later would become CIA

Front 20

Island Hopping Strategy

Back 20

Used by Allies in Pacific Theater
Navy would sweep through central pacific and Army would island hop through south
Conquering an Island, establishing a base, and moving on to the next

Front 21

Battle of Guadalcanal Aug 1942-Feb 1943

Back 21

Allied powers planned to take over the island and use as base for the rest of the war
Critical island to take over
Take over the airfield
22,000 Japanese troops lost
1,000 Americans lost

Front 22

Tinain airbase

Back 22

Allied forces used Airbase for B29's in the war
Busiest airbase during wwii

Front 23

B29 Superfortress

Back 23

Main plane used in firebombing campaigns against japan
Carried the Atomic bombs that destroyed hiroshima and nagasaki

Front 24

Battle of Iwo Jima Feb.-March 1945

Back 24

First american attack on one of the Japanese home islands
Japanese immenent defeat

Front 25

Battle of Okinawa april 1945

Back 25

Southern most Japanese Territory
Allies plan to use as base for operation downfall(invasion of Japan)
Largest amphibous battle of pacific battle
50,000 american lost
100,000 Japs killed
Caused allied hesitance on Op Downfall

Front 26

Kamikaze

Back 26

Japanese pilots using their planes as ammo
Dive bombing directly into ships and commiting suicide
Utilized during battle of Okinawa
Things getting intense for Japanese as Allies were closest to Japan as ever

Front 27

Little Boy and Fat man Aug. 6 and 9 1945

Back 27

Two Atomic Bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
120,000 and 70,000 Jap casualties respectively

Front 28

Hiroshima

Back 28

Most strategic city to a bomb because
Industrial and military significance

Front 29

USS Missouri

Back 29

Site of Japanese surrender in WWII

Front 30

VJ day

Back 30

September 2 1945
Hirohito surrenders on USS missouri