Major European Theater Battles

By isaacjars

  • Battle of France/Miracle of Dunkirk

    Battle of France/Miracle of Dunkirk
    1. Only 45,000 men were expected to be evacuated.
    2. 140,000 French, Polish and Belgian troops were saved along with British.
    3. 933 ships participated/ added in the evacuation.
    4. During the evacuation lorries were lashed together in the sea to construct makeshift jetties to help get soldiers aboard boats.
    5. Around 40,000 British troops never made it back across the Channel. The Battle of France/Miracle of Dunkirk was a large evacuation of British soldiers to avoid becoming pows.

  • Battle of Britain

    Battle of Britain
    1. Great Britain's air force was called the RAF or the Royal Air Force, Germany's air force was called the Luftwaffe
    2. The code name for Hitler's invasion plans was Operation Sea Lion.
    3. It is estimated that around 1,000 British planes were shot down during the battle, over 1,800 German planes were destroyed
    4. Hitler stopped bombing London because he needed his bombers to invade Russia
    5. The leader of the German Luftwaffe was Herman Goering.

  • Battle of Leningrad

    Battle of Leningrad
    1. Called 900 day siege.
    2. Also called prolonged siege.
    3. The siege really only took 872 days.
    4. 650,000 Leningraders were lost.
    5. The commemorating the victims and heroism of the siege was unveiled in 1975. Nazi army invaded Soviet Union. The Union tried to protect itself in doing that it lost more soldiers.

  • operation torch

    operation torch
    1. 60,000 French troops in Morocco.
    2. The key to Torch was a successful amphibious landing.
    3. The landings started before daybreak on November 8th.
    4. French coastal batteries did fire at transport ships but Allied naval gunfire retaliated.
    5. The landing crafts found that the water was unusually shallow and damage was caused to some of the landing craft.
    The goal was for Russia to create a new front on Germany.

  • Battle of Stalingrad

    Battle of Stalingrad
    1.The Battle of Stalingrad was a result of Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union without any declaration of war
    2. The battle started months later after Operation Barbarossa was started on 22nd June, 1941.
    3. The continuous bombing of the city killed thousands and thousands and the air became hot and filled with stinking smell of dead and decaying corpses.
    4. The 4th Panzer Army and the 6th Army of the German forces were given the task of capturing Stalingrad with air support.

  • D-day

    D-day
    1. The largest amphibious invasion in history.
    2. The "D" stands for Day. D-Day and H-Hour stand for the secret day/time an operation is scheduled to begin.
    3. More than 13,000 aircraft.
    4. 5,000 ships
    5. June 5, 1944 was the original date chosen.
    France, on June 6, 1944, in order to fight Nazi Germany

  • Battle of Bulge

    Battle of Bulge
    1. This battle lasted one month because it ended the following year in January
    2. The battle took place at Ardennes,Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany
    3. The strengths of the troops were that they had 80,000 Allies initially; ultimately 600,000+ 200,000 Germany initially; ultimately 500,000
    4. The casualties of this battle were 90,000 Allies 100,000 German
    5. The battle resulted in an allied victory The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front

  • Battle of Berlin

    Battle of Berlin
    1. This battle did not even last a month it ended May 2, 1945.
    2. Around 150,000 Polish soldiers fought alongside the Soviet Union
    3. Joseph Stalin was in a hurry to capture Berlin before the rest of the Allies so he could keep German nuclear research secrets for himself
    4. Poland celebrates its Flag Day on May 2 to commemorate the day it raised the Polish flag over Berlin in victory
    5. The battle left over a million Germans without homes, clean water, or food.
    The fall of the Berlin wall.