The Allies won several victories that would turn the tide of battle

and push back the axis powers.

Patten/KemptonMepham High School

Global History

• German invasion had already cost Russia over six million soldiers, half killed and half captured by the Germans, and a large part of its vast territory and resources.

• With the help of its arctic winter, it stopped the exhausted Germans just before Moscow and pushed them back a bit.

• Hitler stopped listening to his Generals, and decided to take on Stalingrad

• Hitler wanted to reach Stalingrad itself, and at least cover it with heavy artillery, so that it will no longer be an industrial or transportation center.

• The battle of Stalingrad was one of the costliest of the war. Hitler was determined to capture Stalin’s namesake city, and Stalin was equally determined to save it.

• The Soviets then circled their attackers.

• As winter closed in, soldiers fought for two weeks straight without a single building to live in, or without food and ammunition, with no hope of rescue.

• German commander officially surrendered early in 1943.

• Approximately 300,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured.

• 160,000 Allied troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France.

• General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.”

•More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy.

•The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded -- but more than 100,000 Soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat the Germans