May 1944
9
Soviets recapture Sevastopol. In four days of fierce fighting, Russian
troops recapture the Black Sea port and take more than 26,000 prisoners after
a German evacuation by sea is mismanaged.
23
Allies break out from Anzio. Five months after landing at
Anzio and getting pinned to the narrow beachhead by a German counterattack,
the reinforced U.S. VI Corps launches an all-out assault inland.
June 1944
4 6
Allies invade Normandy. D-Day dawns with the greatest amphibious
assault in history—more than 175,000 troops in 4,000 ships—crossing
the English Channel and landing on the beaches of Normandy, France. With Hitler
obsessed that the Allied invasion would come at Pas de Calais, complete tactical
surprise is achieved. Allied losses are 2,500 killed—fewer than anticipated—but
Americans, nonetheless, suffer more than half of the close to 12,000 total
casualties.
14
U.S. takes war to Japanese homeland. Flying from five airfields in
China, 68 B-29 Superfortresses take out a steel plant on the island of Kyushu,
in the first strike against Japan. U.S. capture of the southern Marianas eventually
provides additional bases from which to strike the rest of the Japanese home
islands. Using low-level bombing techniques, the bombers go on to destroy
more than 30 percent of all buildings in Japan.
19 – 21
U.S. defeats Japanese fleet in Battle of the Philippine Sea. Despite
numerical inferiority, the Japanese hope to lure the U.S. Fifth Fleet within
range of their carrier- and land-based planes. U.S. intelligence, however,
uncovers the plan and, in the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” that
follows, the Americans knock out more than 300 planes and 14 ships. The victory
deals a mortal blow to Japan’s naval air power and dooms the country
to defeat.
July
1944 9 20
U.S. forces capture Saipan. Two Marine divisions, later reinforced
by an Army division, establish a beachhead on the mountainous island in mid-June.
Its 29,000 Japanese defenders mount repeated banzai attacks against the invaders,
but lose 95 percent of their force in the process. Among the Japanese losses
are civilians who hurl themselves off cliffs by the hundreds. Saipan’s
airfield falls within three days, but the island is not secured until three
weeks later.
Attempt
to assassinate Hitler fails. In a plot hatched by anti-Nazi German
Army officers, Lt. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg detonates a time bomb in the
conference room at Hitler’s headquarters. The explosion kills four men
but only mildly injures the Fuhrer. The failed assassination attempt prompts
a paranoid Hitler to take complete control of the army, leaving him few trusted
advisors to rely on for a massive counterattack he’s planning in the
West that will ignite the Battle of the Bulge.
21
U.S. recapture Guam. American troops launched success amphibious
attacks and land on the beaches of Guam, a prewar U.S. territory. The fighting
rages for three weeks against the outnumbered Japanese who refuse to surrender.
With the capture of Saipan, Tinian and Guam—located 1300 miles southeast
of Tokyo—the Americans are able to base B-29 bombers on the Marianas
island airfields within striking distance of the Japanese homeland.
August 1944
15
Allies land in southern France.
21
Thousands of Germans are trapped by Allies in Argentan-Falais pocket.
22
Japanese forces withdraw from India.
25
Allies liberate Paris.
September 1944
1 – 4
Dieppe, Brussels and Antwerp are liberated.
17 – 26
Disaster dogs Allied airborne operations in Holland and across Lower Rhine.
25
Allies breach Gothic Line in Italy.
23-26
U.S. Navy dominates Battle for Leyte Gulf. In the largest naval battle
of the war, the U.S. Third and Seventh Fleets, together with 38th Task Force
(143,000), inflict severe losses on sorely outnumbered Japanese forces (42,800)
to recapture the Philippines. The Japanese lose 28 of 64 warships and 10,500
men—some four times more than the Americans do. The increased vulnerability
of the Japanese homeland combined with decreased defensive support sparks
an immediate increase in kamikaze attacks.