The D-day landings.

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After America’s entry into the war the unpreparedness of the US Navy allowed the Germans to wreak massive destruction amongst shipping on the American eastern seaboard during the beginning of 1942. When the situation was stabilised by the introduction of a convoy system, the wolf packs returned to mid-Atlantic. The huge success of their onslaught was helped by the allies temporary loss of ability to read u-boat signals. By the end of 1942, the Allied shipping was in crisis. Losses reached devastating levels again in March 1943 but, thereafter, very effective Allied counter-measures including the introduction of escort support groups, some with aircraft carriers, and Very Long Range aircraft to close the air gap in mid-Atlantic quickly brought a decisive end to the U-boat threat. Although U-boats would continue to operate until the end of the war, the Germans had lost the Battle of the Atlantic by the end of May 1943.

 The Suez Canal in Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea was very important to Britain as it was the way to the oil fields in the Middle East. Britain fought Germany and Italy in North Africa to stop them getting to the Suez Canal. Whilst Germany fought the Russians in the East, the British had scored a success in North Africa. In October 1942, General Montgomery 8th army had attacked the German Afrika Korps lead by Rommel at El Alamein. The Germans had been defeated and the British had pushed them back westwards.

Later in the month the American troops landed in Algeria and Morocco in Operation Torch, the Germans were now trapped.  In May 1943, the Germans finally surrendered.

The Allies next aim was Italy. Stalin was continuously putting pressure on Churchill and Roosevelt to open a second front by invading German held France. He believed that it would force the Germans to withdraw troops from the war against Russia so that they would deal with the British and American in France. Stalin had expected the invasion of France to take place in 1943 but Churchill insisted that the attack would be postponed for a year. Churchill told Stalin that an attack in Italy had to come first. He claimed that this would force the Germans to draw troops away from France to defend Italy.  This would then make the attack on France easier.

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In July 1943 the allies advanced towards Italy. The Italian leader Mussolini was sacked and the new Italian government made peace with the allies and quickly declared war on the Germans. But the Italian government only controlled Southern Italy; the Germans still controlled the North. Even though the German army was exhausted from fighting Russia, Hitler still sent troops to help fight the allies in the South of Italy. The allies slowly moved northwards to try and push the Germans out of Italy completely. Italy proved important to the allies as it kept German troops occupied when they were ...

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