World War II Chronicles

By April 8th, 1945 U.S. and allied forces were still battling to take down Nazi Germany. On the Western front U.S. soldiers had 300,000 Nazi's trapped in a geographical pocket in Ruhr Germany. After days of resisting U.S. advances, the 1st and 9th Armies teamed up and successfully split the pocket, leaving the Germans left to crumble.

By April of 1945 the United States had thousands of troops prepared to fight in what would become the largest naval assault in the Pacific War. On the 1st of the month troops landed on the island of Okinawa and met little resistance by the Imperial Japanese Army. The battle of Okinawa would continue for weeks with U.S. troops dominating the Japanese resistance.

In the final stretch to get the entire German resistance to leave the edge of the Rhine river U.S. and British soldiers team up. Together with forces coming at the Germans by air attack and by water the German don't stand a chance and the heart of Germany becomes open to the allied forces.

March of 1945 aircrafts bombings had become a staple weapon of the war. On the week of March 15th aircrafts carriers were given permission to drop the largest bomb ever created in the war to take out enemy targets. The bomb is known as "The Grand Slam" and weighing in at about 10 tons it played a vital role in the fast paced deterioration of the Nazi Germany army.

By March 11th, 1945 the U.S. soldiers had discovered that the only bridge the Nazi's had failed to demolish was the Ludendorff Bridge leading to the town of Remagen. In a race to get to the Germans before they blew up the the last connecting piece of the Shrine river the U.S. soldiers immediately began a full-scale attach on the bridge. Military engineers from the U.S. were able to dismantle most of the bombs the Germans had left on the bridges structure. It didn't take long for the U.S. soldiers to fully secure the bridge and reach the other side.

By March of 1945 the U.S., Canadian, and British forces had done serious damage to the Nazi army. With barely any line of defense left the Nazi's began to retreat across the Rhine. As they crossed the river they attempted to blow up all the bridges. On March 3rd 1945, the U.S. 9th and Canadian 1st officially teamed in a fight along the West bank that would later lead to the Battle of Remagen.

By 1945 the U.S. had been fighting Japanese forces for almost three years over the Philippine Island of Luzon and Corregidor, located in Manila Bay. Both islands were the last allies the U.S. had in the Philippines, so they fought long and hard to capture the territories. After several defeats U.S. soldiers won the battles once and for all the week of February 26th when General Douglas MacArthur had soldiers airborne and seaborne invade the island territories.

On February 19th, of 1945 U.S. Marines made an amphibious landing on the island of Iwo Jima to continue their fight against the Japanese. Although they were well prepared for battle the beach terrain proved to be a great struggle in their capturing of the island.

The Yalta Conference was a meeting where government leaders from the allied nations of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union met up to discuss how Germany and Europe should be organized following the end of WWII.

This week American soldiers along with other allied men who were prisons of war in the Philippines are liberated by U.S. Rangers.