WWII COMES TO AN END

BATTLE OF THE BULGE

• Allies move on Germany from the west

• Soviets move in from the east

• Hitler counter attacks in west hoping to split U.S. & Brit. Forces

• The German push into Allied lines gave the campaign its name

GERMANY SURRENDERS

• April 1945 – Allies approach Berlin from southwest• April 25, 1945 Soviets surround Berlin and pound

with artillery fire• April 30, 1945 – Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide• May 7, 1945 – Gen. Eisenhower accepts

unconditional surrender of Third Reich from the German military

• May 9, 1945 – Surrender officially signed in Berlin -U.S. & Allied powers celebrate V-E Day = Victory in Europe Day

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

• Code name for creating the first atomic bomb

• Cost = $2 Billion & employed 600,000

• Direct by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in Los Alamos, New Mexico

“A RAIN OF RUIN FROM THE AIR”

• August 6, 1945 – Col. Paul Tibbets pilots the “Enola Gay” B-29 Bomber over Hiroshima and drops the atomic bomb “Little Boy”

• 5 sq. miles are turned to ashes• Of 76,000 buildings, 70,000 flattened• Of 350,000 people killing 70-80,000. 140,000

die by the end of 1945. By 1950 – 50,000 die from the effects of radiation

“Little Boy”

Hiroshima

• August 9, 1945 - “Fat Man” is dropped on Nagasaki

• Of 270,000 people – over 70,000 killed immediately

JAPAN SURRENDERS

• Sept. 2, 1945 – Japan surrenders to . Gen. Douglas MacArthur on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay