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1944
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The weight of the United States’ war production is felt on every front. Stagnated in Italy, the Western Allies plan to assault Hitler's Atlantic Wall. A new weapon attacks London. The Germans bleed Occupied Europe of anything of value and ship millions to death camps. The last year of the war is the most bloody of any war in human history. Landings in Holland are badly timed and planned, but can't stop the Allied juggernaut. The Soviets begin a sustained offensive that will end in Berlin. Hitler tries a desperate gamble at the end of the year to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the Belgian Ardennes forest.
Half of all the casualties in the Pacific War were in the last year. As the Allies moved closer to the Japanese Home Islands, the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces adopted the only plan they could: kill as many Allied soldiers as possible, cripple their morale, and negotiate an armistice that was to Japan's favor. This plan underestimated the resolve the Allies had since Pearl Harbor three years before. But as the Allies got closer to Japan, the fighting grew more vicious. The Allies could not comprehend the willingness to die on the part of the Japanese; the Japanese were left with no other alternative. At the end of 1944, the Allies were within bombing range of the Home Islands. For the first time in two years, strategic targets within Japan were targeted. Soon the shift to area bombing would kill hundreds of thousands.
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