A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War - Essay Example

? Short-Answer Questions 2 Ultra, a word used by the Allies for decrypted intelligence, was vital tothe Allied war effort.? British efforts to decrypt the German Enigma machine resulted in information about the timing and strength of Luftwaffe bombing raids on England; helped Montgomery defeat Rommel at Second El Alamein; and aided the Royal Navy in overcoming the U-Boat campaign in the Atlantic. Ultra enabled the Americans to set up an ambush that led to their victory at Midway, while Allied decryption of German intelligence revealed that the Wehrmacht was unprepared for the Normandy landings. After the war, Churchill told King George VI that the Allies’ ultimate victory was due to Ultra. 2. Marshal Georgi Zhukov was the leading Red Army strategist behind Soviet victories at Moscow, Stalingrad and at Berlin. He was instrumental in developing defensive strategies that led to the Germans’ defeat. A leading member of the Stavka, Zhukov “more than any other one man was responsible for the formulation and implementation of Soviet strategy.”? His victory at Moscow and subsequent counter-offensive at Stalingrad devastated the Wehrmacht and turned the war in the Soviets’ favor after a string of near-catastrophic losses during the early weeks of Operation Barbarossa. After driving the Nazis out of Russia, Zhukov ultimately led the Red Army to victory in 1945 at Berlin, taking the city despite fierce resistance. (Name) 3 3. General George C. Marshall was in large part architect of the Allies’ victory in World War 2. As the grand organizer of the Allies’ war effort, he orchestrated the invasion of the European continent. He also managed the massive U.S. war effort on two fronts, balancing the need for overwhelming manpower and materiel between Europe and the Pacific. Ultimately, Marshall was “responsible for the building, supplying, and, in part, the deploying of over eight million soldiers.”? After the war, the Marshall Plan became the blueprint for recovery in Europe and set the stage for subsequent prosperity in Western Europe. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953. 4. Anzio, the battle subsequent to Operation Shingle, was an attempt by the Allies to outflank the German army and free the road to Rome. Strategically, the Allies sought to liberate Italy but were facing stalemate north of Naples.4 Despite a successful landing, the Americans and British were pinned down by the Germans but managed to hold the beachhead, finally breaking through to Rome and liberating the city. The fighting at Anzio occupied German troops that could not be committed to the defense of Normandy on D-Day, with the Germans eventually committing approximately 80,000 additional troops to the defense of Italy. 5. Operation Fortitude was the name the Allies used for a campaign of deception prior to the Normandy landings. Aimed at keeping the Wehrmacht off balance and confused, it led the German high command to believe that the Allied landing would take place at Pas de Calais. Ultimately, the objective of Operation Fortitude was to keep (Name) 4 the Germans from concentrating their forces in Normandy. One of the war’s most successful deception campaigns, Operation Fortitude had the desired effect: “As a result, (the Germans) embarked on relatively few defensive preparations, mostly along the Pas de Calais on the Channel Coast north of the River Seine.”5 6. The Battle of Kursk technically marked the end of the German initiative in the eastern war. From a tactical standpoint, the Soviet victory at Kursk was a triumph of the Red Army’s use of “redundant” defense, or defense in depth, which utilized a devastating and meticulous combination of artillery, tank units and other defensive weapons. This approach proved the undoing of the Wehrmacht’s famous Blitzkrieg approach to offensive warfare. Designed to overwhelm a foe in a single massive stroke, the German Blitzkrieg broke against a series of Russian defensive positions. “Before Kursk, the Soviets had stationed powerful reserves near the battle zone.”6 7. The Falaise Pocket is the name given to a battle that marked the final major push in Operation Overlord. Allied forces under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery succeeded in trapping units of the German Fifth and Seventh Armies, opening the way to Paris and Germany’s western border. The Germans had hoped to maintain a corridor near Falaise through which their forces could pass but the Allies succeeded in enveloping the enemy. The Germans managed to effect a breakout before the circle could be closed, though, “Ten thousand enemy dead were found in the Falaise pocket alone. The (Name) 5 Allied victory ranked with Stalingrad and North Africa in its decisiveness.”7 8. Operation Market Garden was the code name for a massive Allied invasion of Germany at various points along the Meuse and Rhine rivers. The Allied forces under the command of Field Marshal Montgomery sought to break past the Siegfried Line and strike at various strategically important points within Germany. Logistically, Operation Market Garden was a complex plan requiring that a number of bridges spanning the Meuse and Rhine be taken and held. However, failures of preparation and intelligence helped doom the campaign, which marked the only large-scale Allied airborne offensive in northern Europe. “The cascading consequences of…shoddy planning guaranteed that Market Garden’s flaws would prove fatal.”8 9. The Ten-Go Plan was Japan’s final major attempt at a signal victory in the Pacific. A large task force, headed by the giant battleship Yamato, set out in April 1945 to attack the American forces engaged in the Battle of Okinawa. Despite committing massive numbers of kamikaze - 355 in all - the Japanese flotilla was destroyed by a large American carrier task force before it reached Okinawa.9 Ten-Go helped to convince the Americans that, because Japan was willing to fight at high cost and to the end, utilizing atomic bombs would be necessary if the war was to be brought to a speedy conclusion. (Name) 6 10. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, fought in October 1944, was the largest naval battle fought in World War 2, comprising four individual actions. It was also the first time the Japanese utilized kamikaze in large numbers. The Americans fought for Leyte Island as part of an effort to separate Japan from its possessions in Southeast Asia, and their victory showed that they were clearly the superior force at that point in the Pacific theater of war. Leyte Gulf effectively ended Japanese hopes of fighting the Americans on equal terms. “The series of naval engagements known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf…ended any possibility that the Japanese Navy could influence the outcome of the war.” 10 (Name) 7 Notes 1. Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War (Cambridge, Mass.: The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2000), 48. 2. Otto P. Chaney, Zhukov (Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 232. 3. Nobel Peace Prize 1953: George C. Marshall (Nobelprize.org – The Official Web Site of The Nobel Prize; http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1953/marshall-bio.html). 4. Spencer Tucker, Battles That Changed History: An Encyclopedia of World Conflict (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2011), 527. 5. Murray and Millett, 411. 6. Murray and Millett, 388. 7. Colin F. Baxter, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1887-1976 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 90. 8. Murray and Millett, 441. 9. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: Victory in the Pacific (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1960), 181. 10. Murray and Millett, 366. (Name) 8 Bibliography Colin F. Baxter, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1887-1976. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Otto P. Chaney, Zhukov. Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II: Victory in the Pacific. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1960. Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett. A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Cambridge, Mass.: The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2000. Nobel Peace Prize 1953: George C. Marshall. Nobelprize.org – The Official Web Site of The Nobel Prize; http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1953/marshall-bio.html. Spencer Tucker, Battles That Changed History: An Encyclopedia of World Conflict. 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