United States History

Chapter 27:Americans in World War II

Strengths and Weaknesses

By the time the US entered the war, Germany and Japan had already controlled vast amounts of Europe and Asia

Both nations had powerful militaries that had been rebuilt throughout the 1930s

However, Germany was fighting two fronts Western Europe front, unable to defeat the British Eastern Europe front, advance stopped by the Soviets

Japan was spread throughout Asia, weakening their military

Mobilizing for War

The United States had to convert from a peacetime to a wartime economy, even though some had been down due to Lend-Lease Factories converted to produce tanks, planes, guns, etc. Shipyards built carriers, destroyers, battleships, submarines, and merchant

ships Farms began to produce great amounts of grain, vegetables, meat, etc. People moved to cities that produced these goods, especially in the Midwest

and West and coastal areas

The War Production Board was created in 1942 to oversee conversion and building of new factories

The Office of War Mobilization created in 1943 oversaw all gov’t agencies involved in the war effort

Mobilizing for War

The OWM set ration limits on scarce goods Cloth, metals, food commodities, gasoline and others were limited to

consumers People were issued ration coupons to obtain goods; no coupon, no goods,

but a black market did become successful

Income taxes were increased, most people now had to pay taxes

War bonds were sold to raise money for the war effort

The Office of Price Administration was created to set prices on various goods

The Selective Service and Training Act of 1940 imposed a draft, selecting men 18-45 for military service

War in the Pacific, 1942

The goal of the Japanese at Pearl Harbor was to destroy the American Naval fleet; however, this was not accomplished Many ships sunk in shallow water, thus able to be salvaged No aircraft carriers were in port on Dec. 7th

However, America was not ready to fight the Japanese, thus, after Pearl, many areas throughout the Pacific, like American controlled Philippines, fell quickly American forces retreated, and General Douglas MacArthur escaped,

proclaiming “I SHALL RETURN!” Those troops that did not escape were led on a march on Bataan Thousands died on the Bataan Death March, and many more in the

prison camps

War in the Pacific, 1942

By the summer of 1942, Adm. Chester Nimitz has the US Navy ready to fight

Three major battles ensue that begins to turn the tide of the war into the Americans favor Coral Sea: Began May 7, 1942, American and British forces stopped a

Japanese invasion of Australia Midway: June 3-6 1942,destroyed much of Japan’s navy, including 4

carriers and hundreds of planes Guadalcanal: August 1942, Marines came ashore of this small island in

the Solomons Fought for over 6 months First taste of jungle warfare and Japanese will to fight Eventually able to defeat the Japanese army in early 1943

War in Europe, 1942

By 1942, Axis Powers controlled most of Europe, North Africa and controlled the Atlantic Ocean

German General Erwin Rommel threatened to invade the oil fields of the Middle East and the Suez Canal by summer of 1942

With a British force pushing from the East, and an American invasion of Morocco from the West, the Germans became trapped at El Alamein in the fall of 1942

Rommel surrendered hundreds of thousands of German troops, much to the dismay of Hitler

By defeating the Germans in Africa, the Allies could focus on Europe

War in Europe, 1942

Meanwhile, the Germans are also fighting the Soviets on the Eastern front

The Germans had pushed their way to within a few miles of Moscow by mid-1942, now threatening the oil fields of southern Russia

The key city was Stalingrad If the city falls, the Soviet Union would likely fall In September 1942, the Germans laid siege to the city However, the Soviets held on and surrounded the German army Finally, in January 1943, over 300,000 German troops

surrendered, halting the advance and giving the Soviets the chance to turn the Germans back

Promoting the War

The US Gov’t needed to get as many people on board with the war as possible in order to effectively fight

Media and entertainment were encouraged to keep morale high The media told the news of the good things going on in the war Patriotic movies and propaganda shorts were shown in theatres across the

nation

Posters encouraged people to buy war bonds, join the military, consume less, recycle, etc

Air raid drills and nightly blackouts prepare Americans for an attack on the mainland

In general, life did not change dramatically, there was just a more pressing issue at hand

World War II Propaganda

World War II Propaganda

Rosie the Riveter

With millions of men at war, war production jobs needed be filled by women

Women worked in jobs such as shipbuilding, welding, and other jobs typically filled by men

Rosie the Riveter encouraged women, even married women, to take jobs that men had left behind

Older women and African Americans still had a hard time finding work and women were paid less than men

Most thought it would be temporary, but others expected permanent change in the American workforce

Discrimination and the War While blacks gained opportunities in jobs like never before, discrimination

and violence were still common

FDR issued an executive order to forbid discrimination in war industries and gov’t offices

However, the Fair Employment Practices Committee struggled to enforce the order

Mexican Americans also struggled with discrimination, even though the bracero program employed thousands in factories and farms around the nation

Mexican youths in the West were targeted and beaten on several occasions for their zoot suits American sailors, especially in LA, beat several men for their long slicked hair

and baggy zoot suits in the zoot suit riots

Zoot Suit Riots

Japanese Americans

Japanese Americans were treated especially horribly

In 1942, FDR issued Executive Order 9066 Instructed all people of Japanese decent, even Nisei, to report to

internment camps The camps were located in desolate areas away from the West Coast Caused by a fear of retaliation by Japanese Americans in the US after

Pearl Harbor

Most of the people sent to the camps were American citizens

Most lost all of there belongings and homes and herded into barb wire and guarded camps to live until the war ended

Japanese Internment Camps

The North African Campaign

Because a full-fledged assault was not possible in 1942, the Allies focused on German and Italian strongholds in North Africa

British troops had halted an Axis advance that prevented capture of the Suez Canal, an important trade route to the Indian Ocean

In November 1942, American troops invaded at Morocco and Algeria They easily defeated the Vichy French troops stationed Allied troops from the west and east could begin a pincer tactic and trap the

Axis

By May 1943, British and American armies forced German General Erwin Rommel to surrender in Tunisia Over 250,000 troops surrendered Rommel escaped back to Europe

Italy After Africa, the Allies turned their attention to Italy

Sicily was the first target in July 1943 General George Patton, hero of N. Africa, conquered the island in about a

month

Fearing destruction of Italy, the Italian PM ordered Mussolini’s arrest Germany set up a puppet state in Northern Italy, sheltering Mussolini By September, Italy surrendered to the Allies, ending the war for them However, Germany continued to fight in Italy

After landing south of Rome at Anzio in Jan. 1944, the Allies began to push north Slowly, through brutal mountain warfare, the Germans were driven from

Italy Mussolini was captured and shot In July 1944, the Allies captured Rome

Battle of the Atlantic

In the meantime, supply and troop carriers between the United States and Europe were relentlessly hounded

The German Navy used U-boats to stealthily attack Allied shipping

However, the Allies turned the tide of the Atlantic with the use of sonar Sonar uses sound waves to detect underwater objects Sonar allowed surface ships to find subs and destroy them

By 1944, the Allies had virtually eliminated the German Navy and could focus their efforts on bombing Germany American forces bombed chiefly during the day British forces bombed chiefly during the night

Operation Overlord

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Allied invasion of Europe Made possible by victory in the Atlantic and bombings of Germany France would be the target for invasion

Plans were kept top secret and the Allies used deception to keep the Germans guessing as to where the invasion would take place Dummy forces were created across the English Channel from Calais, the

narrowest area of the Channel Instead, a French area known as Normandy was chosen for the invasion Five sections of beach, code named Utah, Omaha (American), Juno,

Gold and Sword (British and Canadian) were planned as landing spots

D-Day, June 6, 1944 commenced the invasion of Europe

Operation Overlord

Germany had fortified the coast with obstacles, barbed wire, mines, and concrete bunkers with machine gunners However, Hitler thought the invasion would be elsewhere, so

resistance, while fierce, was much less than what it could have been

Millions of Allied troops made it ashore by early September

With the help of the French Resistance, the Allies were able to liberate Paris on August 25, 1944

While the Germans were pushed eastward out of France, Soviet troops pressed the Germans westward, creating a trap

Ending the War in Europe

Hitler introduced a new weapon in September 1944, knowing the war was becoming a lost cause The V-2 rocket was the first missile While inaccurate, they were hard to shoot down

The Allies, in a hope to end the war by Christmas, launched Operation Market Garden in September Airborne troops landed in Belgium, hoping to drive the Germans from

Belgium and Holland, and pushing into Germany However, the plan failed, ensuring the war would last into 1945

Germany threw all that they had into one final counteroffensive in December 1944 The ensuing battle became known at the Battle of the Bulge

Ending the War in Europe

The German push created a “bulge” in the lines, and completely surrounded a 101st Airborne division at Bastogne, Belgium General McAuliff was asked to surrender by the Germans, to which he

responded, “NUTS!”

General Patton’s 3rd Army “came to the rescue” of the surrounded troops, ending Germany’s chance of regaining momentum

In February, FDR, Churchill and Stalin met in the Yalta Conference to plan how Europe would be reshaped and rebuilt after the war

The Allies closed in on Germany, racing to Berlin

On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide with Soviet troops occupying Berlin On May 7, Germany unconditionally surrendered, declaring V-E Day

The Pacific

All the while, Allied forces are also fighting in the Pacific

Because of the extent of the Japanese empire, the Allies relied on an “island-hopping” campaign to turn the tide of the war in their favor Only strategic islands would be captured, rather than every Japanese

controlled area Airstrips and bases would be built on captured islands to assist the

next invasion

The campaign began in November 1943 in the Gilbert Islands

Tarawa was the next target, but much more difficult than Gilbert Thousands died trying to penetrate the fortified coral reefs of

Tarawa

The Pacific

Next in line was the Marshall Islands, and Saipan

The Japanese navy had never recovered from Coral Sea and Midway, but tried to stop the invasion of Saipan

By August 1944, after fierce fighting with almost no surrendering troops, the Allies controlled Saipan and nearby Guam Control of the islands gave American planes range to bomb mainland

Japan

The Philippines were also targeted The Japanese Navy was destroyed in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October

1944 Troops, along with Filipino guerillas, were able to take the islands back

by February 1945

Navajo Code Talkers

Gov’t created a code language based on Navajo

Navajo men were recruited to serve and became radio operators in the Pacific

Very successful code that was never broken by the Japanese

Depicted in the movie Windtalkers, starring Adam Beach and Nicolas Cage

Ending the War in the Pacific

Allied planes, now within range, could now bomb Japanese cities, to which they did, with devastating effect

However, military leaders refused to surrender, even as civilian morale slouched

Iwo Jima, a small island a few hundred miles from Tokyo, was fought for fiercely for 6 weeks, starting in Feb. 1945 Famous photo of Marines placing a flag on Mt. Suribachi was

taken during the fight for Iwo Jima

After Iwo, the largest land invasion ever took place on April 1, 1945 at Okinawa

Iwo Jima, Feb.1945

Ending the War in the Pacific

Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific 49,000 Allied casualties Like many other battles, Japanese troops refused surrender and fought

to the death The use of kamikaze attacks were common

The Americans were in range of invading Japan and the war in Europe is complete, but FDR did not live to see it FDR died of an aneurysm on April 12, 1945 His vice President, Harry S. Truman, took over as president and

commander of the military in the war However, an invasion of Japan would cost up to a million American

lives, so Truman had to figure out a way to end the war

The Atomic Bomb

After escaping Germany, Albert Einstein warned the US Gov’t that Germany was trying to develop a bomb from radioactive elements

It was unanimous that the Americans must beat the Germans to the development of an atomic bomb

The secret Manhattan Project tested different materials and the science behind fission

On July 16, 1945, a successful explosion was made near Alamogordo, NM

On July 26, unconditional surrender was demanded of the Japanese, to which they refused

Truman was now in charge of deciding whether to use the bomb to end the war

V-J Day

On August 6, 1945, a plane named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, an industrial city in Japan

90% of the city was destroyed and over 75,000 killed instantly

Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, with similar results

The Japanese surrendered on August 14, with the official surrender signed on September 2 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay

The Holocaust

Germany’s policy of anti-Semitism led to the destruction of 6 million lives of people of Jewish faith, plus millions more of other “undesirables”, such as gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, and the handicapped

What began as persecution became systematic murder and the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”

Hitler’s SS and Gestapo rounded up Jews into ghettos in major cities, where many died

Eventually, concentration camps were set up to create materials for the war effort on the backs of Jewish labor, but led to death camps Death camps led people into gas chambers and bodies were either

burned in large ovens or buried in mass graves

The Holocaust

Some of the most notorious camps were Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor

Reports were sketchy at first and many people did not believe that such camps existed

Thousands tried to escape, but strict immigration laws led many people to their deaths

As the Allies liberated Nazi controlled areas, they experienced the genocide firsthand

Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany after the war and several Nazi officials were imprisoned or put to death for their role in the Holocaust

Remember the Victims…

Remember the Victims…

Costs of the War

Millions lost their lives, civilian and military

Europe and Japan was nearly destroyed and billions would need to be spent to rebuild

Most people lacked basic necessities such as food, heat and water

The Allies vowed to help rebuild areas devastated by the war in hopes that recovery would happen quicker and another war of this scale could be prevented