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Battle of France/miracle of Dunkirk
From: May 27, 1940- June 4, 1940 Importance: The Importance of Dunkirk or Operation Dynamo was the miracle. The miracle was the civilians helping. Without the civilians help many lives would have been taken.- Civilian ships of all types participated in the effort
- The civilian ships had to go through waters infested with German explosives
- The nickname was Operation Dynamo
- Some civilian ships were used as ferrys
- In 9 days more than 338,000 soldiers were saved
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Battle of Britain
From: July 10, 1940- October 31, 1940 Importance- The importance of the Battle Of Britain was that it was shown that Air Power alone could win a battle. -The Germans were thinking that the British would surrender so they launched the attack late.
- Every moth the Germans lost 16% of their luwafte.
-The British lost 21% of their air forces every month.
-Many German pilots morals were damaged due to the second attack.
-The battle was merely postponed by Hitler. -
Siege of Leningrad
From: September 8, 1941- January 27, 1944 The importance of the Siege of Leningrad was important because the people endured for a very long time.- The Siege lasted 880 days.
- More than 1 million civilians died.
- more than 300,000 Soviet soldiers died trying to protect the city.
- The Soviet forces were less than 15% of the Germans
- The people in town made a land bridge across the lake to receive supplies.
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Battle of Stalingrad
From: July 17, 1942- February 2, 1943 The importance of the Battle of Stalingrad was that it stopped the Germans advance and turned the table towards the Allies.- One reason the Germans wanted Stalingrad was because it had Stalin's name on it.
- Germans also wanted the town because it was an industrial town.
- The Germans brought 330,000 soldiers initially. -Towards the end the Germans had 91,000 soldiers remanding.
- An estimated 800,000 ally soldiers died.
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Operation Torch
From: November 8, 1942- November 10, 1942 The importance was that it was the first time The US and Britain had worked together on an invasion.- Landing crafts were damaged due to a shallow beach at Oran.
- The landing at Oran was similar to D-Day.
- This was the first time a large American airdrop happened.
- The French Resisted the Allies in the beginning.
- The efforts were highly successful in all the places.
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D-Day
From: June 6, 1944 The importance of D-Day was that it was a huge victory and gave the Allies a gate to removing the Germans from France.- It was one of the largest amphibious invasions in history.
- The Atlantic wall was a 2,400 mile beach area of bunkers, mines, and obstacles.
- The operation was originally planned for the fifth but bad weather prohibited it.
- 5,000 boats and 11,000 aircraft were used.
- 4,000 troops lost their lives on the beach.
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Battle of the Bulge
From: Dec 16, 1944- Jan 25, 1945 The importance was that it was the last major German attack on the Western front.- The Germans were planning to go through the Ardennes on a route on which the had traveled 3 times before
- Three German armies participated in total being over 1/4 of a million troops
- The US army lost over 100,000 soldiers in the battle
- The battle got its name from how the lines of the Allies looked like a bulge
- The Germans Ran out of fuel which proved to be their undoing
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Battle of Berlin
From: Apr 16, 1945- May 2, 1945 The importance was that it was the end of WW2 in Europe.- Germany had roughly 1 million men and 10,000 artillery units.
- Russia had about 2.5 million men and 41,000 artillery units.
- Over 2 million artillery shells were fired into Berlin.
- Over 2 thousand Russian tanks were destroyed.
- 150,000 Germans were killed.
