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The success
of the Sicilian operation and the fall of Mussolini converted the American military and political leadership into supporters of a campaign in Italy. -
The landing
on the “shin” of Italy, at Salerno, just south of Naples, by the mixed U.S.–British 5th Army, under U.S. General Mark Clark. -
The conference
for which Churchill, Roosevelt, and Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo. Little was produced by Sextant except the Cairo Declaration, published on December 1, a further statement of war aims. -
The strategy
of keeping his armies stationary was made easier for Hitler by the complete ascendancy he had achieved over his generals, who disputed with Hitler only at the risk of losing their commands or worse. -
Hitler
accepted the annihilation of the German Army Group Centre on the Eastern Front by the Soviet summer offensive which brought the Red Army in a few weeks’ time to the Vistula River and the borders of East Prussia. -
Hitler
still hoped to drive the Allies back and still adhered to his principle of concentrating on the war in the west. -
the war’s most celebrated D-Day
when 156,000 men were landed on the beaches of Normandy between the Orne estuary and the southeastern end of the Cotentin Peninsula: 83,000 British and Canadian troops on the eastern beaches, 73,000 Americans on the western. -
The V-1 missiles
were first launched, mostly from sites in the Pas-de-Calais; the V-2 missiles were launched a few months later, on September 8, from sites in the Netherlands -
the Americans on the Allies’ right
newly supported by the landing of the U.S. 3rd Army under Patton, broke through the German defenses at Avranches, the gateway from Normandy into Brittany. -
Churchill and Roosevelt
met again for their second Quebec Conference, code-named “Octagon”. The most important decision made at the conference was that Roosevelt and Churchill together approved the European Advisory Commission’s scheme for the division of defeated Germany into U.S., British, and Soviet zones of occupation -
The next conference of the Allies
was held in Moscow, between Churchill and Stalin, with U.S. ambassador W. Averell Harriman also present at most of their talks. Disagreement persisted over Poland. -
Roosevelt’s last meeting with Stalin and Churchill
took place at Yalta, in Crimea. The conference is chiefly remembered for its treatment of the Polish problem -
This offensive
culminated in a series of five attacks on Dresden, launched by the RAF with 800 aircraft -
Hitler
married his mistress, Eva Braun, he committed suicide with her in the ruins of the Chancellery, as the advancing Soviet troops were less than a half mile from his bunker complex -
At midnight
the war in Europe was officially over.