an enormous russian victory at stalingrad.

which takes us through the third chapter, stalingrad, february, 1943. the surrender of the german army to the red army, the soviet forces, and the great pivot of the war when the soviet union begins fighting an offensive war, pushing germany back into the streets of berlin by the spring of 1945. the soviet victory at stalingrad, if there is one a battle that is the pivotal battle of world war ii, that would be stalingrad because the victory gave reasonably good assurance to churchill and roosevelt, the western planners, that the soviets were not going to go down in military defeat and were not going to seek a political exit from the war. there was a reasonable assumption that they would stay and be an effective fighting force. that soviet victory at stalingrad underwrote the viability of the earlier decisions to fight principally from the air and delay d-day for a year and scale back the projected force from 215 to 90 divisions. if we asked the question, who it seems likeii, a straightforward question. i always ask my students this. one answer is the un

they took place in the defense of stalingrad. most consumed any battles against the sixth army west of stalingrad. unlike 1941, when the 18 divisions played a significant role in the battle of moscow, the divisions in 1942 played a much less significant role in the scheme of things. we have essentially in the far east, 64 division equivalents. by january, 1942. 66. what is a division equivalent? if you go back through the papers associate with u.s. russian negotiations, you will see the meeting between general dean and churchill. the soviets commit themselves to operations 2-3 months after the european war. they have constraints on those operations because they claim they have 30 rifle divisions. that is an inadequate number. technically, they are correct. but they have divisional equivalents. perhaps not offensive in nature but they could be made that way quickly as they demonstrated in the summer of 1945. they have two motorized rifle divisions and tank divisions. the division equivalent number are what you would have if you co

an enormous russian victory at stalingrad. now, the war is beginning to reverse itself.e are going to turn back a little bit to the beginning of the american participation in the war and take that right d-day. the day -- the next time we will do the d-day invasion. there is the basis, in east anglia. bases in easthe anglia. it is only about 60 miles from london but it might as well be six centuries away. as i say in the book, it is shaped like a giant hachette aimed at nazi, germany. -- thiscross from here is the closest in england that you can run a bomber operation. the fighter boys were down here. the british raf pilots and bomber command was north near york. i have this map in your book. it is pretty good although it is not in color. you have the ranges of the fighter aircraft. how far they could get round-trip from england. that tells you the course of the year were. only --eginning, we can the americans could only do shallow penetration missions. if you're trying to knock out , and that is featured in the great film, 12:00 high. mostly british spitfires. as you get

having stalingrad, a wide but somewhat broken river, aey would be confined to gallipoli like enclave andounded by hostile hills several miles of open ocean separating them from support. that is, if stalin had not of his chiefrnings of staff and human -- and truman. any questions? [applause] d. m. giangreco: yes? [indiscernible] >> i recall it you said there was a directive to do the hokkaido operations, that that was a much lesser scale than the bombings? : that was theo second one which was basically two divisions, basically a marine force. a small marine force. some construction battalions. their navalet infantry and they could get a division there. then i have to go back 300 miles , get another division, bring it forward, and then there is another division in the car cariles. it would eventually be made available to the lodgment. that is the later one that got the plug pulled. >> the so-called detail meeting -- gkl meeting. they based it on another source seen nohave got, i have archival evidence, no archival citation that explains it. volumes -- two d. m. giangreco: which is what

britain.ow they bombed that is how they bond stalingrad. they don't have these babies that can go long distances. we are the only countries that have this sort of thing. anybody else? ok. that is the general strategic picture. there is the instrument of destruction. the b-17. it looks big. it looks big on the ground. when you get inside, it is very claustrophobic. it is like the cabin of a submarine. you have a 10 or 11 person crew in here. you have a plexiglas nose. it is not bulletproof. on one of the first missions, you may have read this. the only casualty was a copilot when a pigeon hit the plexiglass and got some splinters into their heads. that first mission was a cake run. you have a navigator who is sitting at a desk here. he has to get you to the target. a lot of these guys are kids. i talked to a guy that was at university and he is a history major. he is about to go into his junior year. he has not even taken advanced geometry that he is drafted and six months later, he is navigating a bomber from maine to scotland with a crew o

an enormous russian victory at stalingrad. hurting, now the war is beginning to reverse itself. we are going to turn back a little bit to the beginning of the american participation and take that through d-day. next up we will do the d-day invasion. ok. there is the basis, east anglia. i have been there a lot. englandbackward area of , only 60 miles from london but it might as well be six centuries away. as i say, it is shaped like a giant hachette aimed at no azi, germany. this is the closest space you can get. the fighter boys were further south, down here. the british pilots and bomber command was north near york. you have this in your book. you don't have it in color. you have the ranges of the fighter aircraft, how far they could get. that tells you the course of the air war. in the beginning we can only do this in the shallow penetration missions. if you're trying to knock them featured in the great film 12:00 high, they are mostly british. you get further into the war, fighters with longer range. thunderbolts and lightning. they can take the german bombers. this is the wa