1942 Tide turning in World War II in Europe

as we saw in the last video in 1942 we start to see the tide turn in the Pacific just as a reminder in December of 1941 you have the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor which brings the United States into World War two and as we get into 1942 you have the Doolittle raid on the mainland of Japan which is a psychological victory for America and the Allies then you have the Battle of Coral Sea and then Midway Midway in particular was a huge actually I shouldn't put red there I should just leave it blue it was a huge success for the American for the American Navy followed by Guadalcanal where the u.s. is actually after which is able to go on the offensive against the Japanese so we see a significant turning of the tide in 1942 in the Pacific and it also turns out to be the case in Europe that we see a turning of the tide in 1942 just as Guadalcanal is occurring you might remember that in 1941 Hitler and the Nazis decided they want to attack the Soviet Union probably not a good idea they're going to stretch themselves thin but they do so they do so anyway they have the siege of leningrad starts in starts in 1941 and then in 1942 by august they're able to reach Stalingrad which is right about here in Stalingrad it's now called Volgograd it's right about there if the map extended over there this is a major I guess you could say battle or even series of battles in world war ii movies are made about Stalingrad incredibly bloody incredibly kind of this you know really I mean if you look at pictures of the city of Stalingrad after after the siege after after it's it after the the battles there the the city was is essentially in ruins but Stalingrad the the the battle or the battles I guess you say it's Stalingrad they start in August of 1942 and they continued for several months going up to February of 1943 but this marks the turning point for Hitler he's getting bogged down and Grad getting bogged down in Stalingrad eventually gets defeated in Stalingrad in early 1943 and his armies are really really really spread thin so this is Stalingrad is a is a hugely hugely important important event or series of events in World War two and let's just be clear where we are right now Stalingrad commences in august of nineteen out of 1942 and just to kind of frame it in your mind it relative to the pacific theater this is right around you know plus or minus a few weeks of when Guadalcanal was going on conflict between the Japanese and the American and navies so you have you have the you have this incredibly bloody battle or series of battles at Stalingrad then in October we've been talking about this back and forth in North Africa and some people said well you know why is you know why are they even worried about North Africa and I should have mentioned this earlier but we have to remember that there's something somewhat strategic here called the Suez Canal why is the Suez Canal strategic well it connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and then eventually the Indian Ocean so it you don't have to go all the way around Africa to go from Europe to the Indian Ocean so it's an increase in credit incredibly strategic I guess passage or a way to travel by sea between well I guess for the for the world but especially between Europe and between Asia and so you can imagine the British were very keen on protecting the Suez Canal and the axis would have loved to get control of the Suez Canal let me write this here this right over here is the Suez Suez Canal and as we go into October if we go into October so this is Stalingrad commences right over here and then if we go into October you have the British are able to defeat the axis or a start to defeat the axis and then push them back and this eventually leads to the British being able to go all the way to Tunisia so this is kind of the final back and forth blow that kind of starts to secure victory for the Allies in North Africa and at the same time that this is commencing in October at the same this is commencing in October you have other Allied forces starting to arrive in Moroccan Morocco and Algeria forces from the US are arriving in arriving in Morocco and forces from the UK from Great Britain are arriving in are arriving in Algeria so this is going to give the Allies control of North Africa from which they can now mount assaults on to onto the European mainland which we will see in the next series of videos so definitely the tide is turning and the Allies are starting to be able to go on the offensive both in the Pacific and in the European theater