Transcript Slide 1

America and WWII
• After Pearl Harbor, public opinion in
America, especially the West coast, called
for an immediate response and attack on
Japan. But….
• Roosevelt had already worked out the
ABC-1 Agreement:
– Attack Germany first
– If U.S. attacked Pacific first and put all strength
there, Hitler might defeat Soviets and British
and make it impossible to defeat him
– If Germany defeated fist, the Allied powers
could concentrate on defeating Japan next.
– So U.S gave just enough resources to Pacific
campaign to prevent Japan from getting too
strong and fortified
America’s Task
• Preparing for war and the logistics of
war were far more difficult and
complex in WWII:
– Feed, cloth, and arm itself and its allies
– Transport troops is far flung places as
Burma and also Britain. Truly a global
war
– Transport supplies to its soldiers and
allies from USSR to Australia.
– Question was: Was America up for this
herculean task?
Home Front
• National Unity was strong, mostly due to
the surprise attack by the Japanese
– American Communists clamored for an all
out assault on the Axis powers
– Italian-Americans and German-Americans
gave support to the Allied cause
– Patriotism of immigrants was not in question
like in World War I
• Ethnic groups more engrained into American
society
• Strong Supporters of Roosevelt and New Dealers
• No government witch hunt like in World War I
Japanese Internment
• One exception was the internment of
110,000 Japanese-Americans on the
pacific coast
– 2/3rds were American born and citizens
– Fear of sabotage and spying, they were herded
into concentration and internment camps by the
U.S. government
– Many robbed of their property and also future
earnings
– Korematsu v. U.S. Supreme Court upheld the
internment
– In 1988, U.S. apologized and survivors
received 20,000 each
Throwing in an
Extra Charge,
1941
• The Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor in 1941
excited virulent hatred
of Japan among
Americans, who called
for a war of vengeance
against the treacherous
aggressor. AntiJapanese sentiment
remained stronger than
anti-German sentiment
throughout the war.
Orr ©1941 by The Chicago Tribune
Enemy Aliens
•
When the United States suddenly found itself at war with Germany, Italy, and
Japan in December 1941, noncitizen German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants
became “enemy aliens” and were required to register with the authorities.
Several hundred resident Germans and Italians were detained in internment
camps, but the harshest treatment was meted out to the Japanese, some
110,000 of whom, noncitizens and citizens alike, were eventually interned.
Ironically, the two Japanese American Boy Scouts posting this notice in Los
Angeles would soon be on their way to a government detention camp. Brown Brothers
Pledging in Vain
• These Japanese American schoolchildren in San Francisco were
soon evacuated along with their parents.
National Archives
Japanese
American
Evacuees,
1942
• After the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command
ordered the forced evacuation of all Japanese and
Japanese Americans living on the Pacific Coast,
families had no choice but to pack up whatever they
could carry and move to the “relocation centers” hastily
erected farther inland.
Library of Congress
Manzanar Internment Camp, 1943
•
This view of Manzanar is deceptively picturesque and tranquil. In
reality, the six-thousand-acre camp on the barren flats of a dried-up
lake in California’s interior was enclosed in barbed wire, and the
20×20 uninsulated cabins were virtually uninhabitable. A riot in late
1942 against the government’s use of informants within the camp
resulted in the deaths of two internees and the serious injury of eight
others.
Library of Congress
Reviving the Economy
• Mobilizing the economy for war finally
ended the Great Depression
– 100 billion dollars in military orders in
1942 alone
– War Production Board (WPB) helped
orchestrate the production of military
supplies
•
•
•
•
•
40 billion bullets
300,000 aircrafts
76,000 ships
86,000 tanks
2.6 million machine guns
Reviving the Economy
• War Production Board
– Managed economy and halted
manufacturing of non-essential items
– Assigned priorities for transportation
and access to raw materials
• Farmers
– New machinery and also new fertilizers
allowed farms to also increase
production, even thought they had a
smaller workforce
Reviving the Economy
• Increased production led to increased
inflation in 1942:
– Office of Price Administration
• Extensive regulations controlling prices
• Rationing of meat and butter enforced
– War Labor Board
• Enforced ceilings on wage increases
• Labor hated the wage ceilings and staged
many walkouts
– In response the government passed Smith
Connally Antistrike Act of 1943
• Government could seize and operate tied- up
industries
• Strikes against government run industries was illegal
• Government took control of coal mines and railroads
• But by the war’s end, only 1% of all work time was
lost to strikes, proving labor’s effort in fighting the war
Your Number Was Called!
Manpower and Womanpower
• Armed Services enlisted:
– 15 million men
– 216,000 women
• WAACS (Army), WAVES (navy), and SPARS
(Coast Guard)
• This many men leaving for armed
service meant that farms and
factories were short of workers
– Bracero Program
• Brought in Mexican agricultural workers to
harvest grain and fruit in the West
Womanpower
• More than 6 million women took
jobs outside the home.
• As mothers, the government helped
establish daycares while the
women worked
• After the war, many women wanted
to stay in their jobs and it
foreshadowed the eventual
revolution of the role of women in
American society
War Workers
• More than 6 million women--3 million of them homemakers who
had never before worked for wages--entered the work force
during World War II. In contrast to the experience of women
workers in World War I, many of these newly employed women
continued as wage workers after the war ended.
National Archives/Stock Montage
Rosie the Riveter
“Rosie, the Riveter”
Fix that Engine!
Join the Women’s Army Corps
Women’s Army Air Corps
Pilots
We Need Nurses Badly
Female War Photographer
Internal Migration in the United States During World
War II
•
Few events in American history have moved the American people
about so massively as World War II. The West and the South
boomed, and several war-industry cities grew explosively. A
majority of migrants from the South were blacks; 1.6 million African
Americans left the region in the 1940s.
Copyright (c) Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.
On the Road
Looking for Work
Segregated Units
Navajo Code Talkers, 1943
•
One of the best-kept secrets of World War II was the use of the
Navajo language in a Marine Corps code designed to confuse the
Japanese. Two marines in the leatherneck unit, made up of Native
Americans from Arizona and New Mexico, transmitted in code during
the battle for Bougainville Island in the South Pacific in 1943.© Bettmann/ CORBIS
Home Front Impact
• Being isolated from the fighting, America
came out of the war practically unscathed.
• As noted, war invigorated the economy
– GNP in 1940 was $100 billion
– GNP in 1945 was $200 billion
– Corporate profits doubled during the same time
period from $ billion to $12 billion
– Disposable income more than doubled
– When price ceilings were lifted in 1946,
Americans pushed up prices 33 percent in 2
years.
• All this growth occurred while the rest of
the world was laid to waste and struggling
Increased Government
• During the war, the government took on a
greater role than ever before and the lives
of Americans were influenced more than
ever by the federal government.
– Rationing system
– Worked for the government or served in armed
forces
– Millions worked in defense industries who
employees and unions were monitored by the
FEPC and WLB.
– Personal needs cared for by government
housing projects, day-care facilities, and health
plans
– Office of Scientific research and Development
funneled money to universities and cemented
the relationship between the government and
universities.
Do Your Bit!
Buy, Buy, Buy, Buy a Bond:
It Will Lead to VICTORY!
Get Your Ration Cards
S..t..r..e..t..c..h That Food!
No New Dresses for a While
Increased Government
• In many ways, the government became
the warfare-welfare state
– Idea of an established military-industrial
complex.
• Idea that the government needed a large military to
survive, especially with the Cold War following WWII.
• But high military spending made the economy
dependent on it and thus government spending to
maintain economic growth
– Government continues even today extensive
welfare programs for impoverished citizens
Cost and Debt
• Cost of war was $330 billion
– 10 x more than the Great War
– 2 x more than all government spending since
1776
• Income tax was expanded to an
astonishing 90 percent rated
– But only 2/5ths of the war costs were paid by
current revenue. Remainder was borrowed.
• National debt skyrocketed from $49 billion
in 1941 to $259 billion in 1945
• War cost $10 million dollars an hour at its
height of production
The National Debt, 1930–1950
• Contrary to much popular mythology, it was World War II, not the
New Deal, that first ballooned the national debt. The debt
accumulated to still greater amounts in the 1980s and 1990s.
Source: Historical Statistics of the United States.
Japan and the Pacific
http://ww2.wwarii.com/var/albums/maps_documents/pacific_theater/ww2-asia-overview.gif
Japan and the Pacific
• After Pearl Harbor, Japanese go on the
offensive for about half a year with
astonishing results:
– Too Wake Island and Guam]
– Invaded and conquered the Philippines, Hong
Kong, Malaya, and British Singapore
– Seized Burma
– Took over Dutch east Indies (Indonesia)
– Took Control of British Borneo
– Northern part of New Guinea
– Solomon Islands
Japan and the Pacific
Japanese
Empire in
1942.
However, in
May and
June of 1942,
Americans
Begin to show
resisitance
Battle of the Coral Sea
First naval battle in
History fought exclusively
With aircrafts carriers.
Americans inflicted heavy
Losses on the Japanese.
Aircraft carried out the
Attack and neither fleet
Shot at each other.
Showed that Japanese were
Not invincible.
Battle of Midway
Midway was important to
The Japanese because
It would serve as a base
To launch attacks on
American fleet in Hawaii
And maybe compel
The weakened Americans
to fight a destructive battleLeading to a cease-fire
Battle waged from June 3
-6 1942.
Battle of Midway
• Admiral Chester Nimitz directed a small but
skillfully maneuvered carrier force, against the
powerful invading Japanese fleet.
• Most of the fighting was again done by aircraft.
• Japanese retreated after losing 4 carriers.
• Marked a turning point in the war, along with Coral
Sea. The victory halted Japanese expansion.
• In many ways, Japanese were victims of their own
success. They simply overstretched themselves
and overcommitted themselves. This allowed the
Americans to take the offensive
American Strategy
• After Midway and Coral sea,
Americans took parts of Guadalcanal
Island in the Solomon Islands
– Important trade post for supply lines to
and from Australia.
– In Feb 1943, Japanese evacuated.
They lost 20,000 soldiers and the
Americans only 1,700. This ratio of
10:1 remained throughout the war
– General Macarthur and his troops held
on in New Guinea and by August 1944,
he had taken all of New Guinea.
American strategy
• Americans decided to leapfrog
Japanese islands.
– Attacking fortified islands meant death
and time.
– So Americans took less fortified islands,
essentially leapfrogging fortified ones,
and then engaged in heavy bombing of
the Japanese.
– They also were able to cut off supplies,
so they could also starve them out.
American Strategy
American Success
• May and August of 1943
– Attu and Kiska Islands
• November 1943
– Gilbert Islands
• Feb 1944
– Marshall Islands
• June 1944
– Marinas Islands
– Great Turkey Shoot
– By July and August, all of the Marinas were
controlled. Round the clock bombing started in
Japan.
• Battle of the Philippine Sea
– June 20 1944
– Several Japanese carriers sunk
German U-Boats
During 1942,
the German u-boats
Hunted in packsCoined wolfpacksAnd sank 500 U.S.
Merchant ships.
Ship destruction
Outran ship
Production.
Slowly, Americans gained
A upper hand with radar,
Plane convoys, and
ENIGMA.
ENIGMA
British Code Breakers finally
Were able to understand
Enigma and were able to
Pinpoint the exact location
Of the U-boats in the Atlantic.
A group of code breakers
were
Secretly hidden in a nonDescript office in London.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb44bGY2KdU
&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe
=active
Battle of the Atlantic
• Around the spring of 1943,
the Americans and British
had finally subdued the Uboats.
• This is important because
– Britain might have been
blockaded and defeated,
meaning no D-Day or second
front
War in Europe
• In late 1942, the Allied powers started to
bomb Germany relentlessly:
– In May of 42, British had a 1,000 plane raid
on Cologne.
– In August of 42, Americans joined in the raids
on Germany
• General Rommel, Desert Fox, drove
Britain back to close to the Suez Canal
• But British General Montgomery defeated
him at El Alamein, west of Cairo. He had
the aid of Sherman tanks. Rommel was
pushed all the way back to Tunisia.
Stalingrad
• In September of 42, the Soviets were
able to stall the Germans at
Stalingrad. Invading divisions came
only to be defeated.
• In November of 1942, The Soviets
launched a counter attack, which was
mostly never truly reversed.
• By the end of 1943, Stalin recovered
2/3rds of the territory lost to Hitler.
A Second European Front
• Stalin wanted the Brits and
Americans to open a second front,
primarily in Western Europe.
• Roosevelt wanted France, as early as
1942 or 1943
• Churchill argued against this out of
fear of many losses, like in WWI.
• Churchill argued to go through the
“soft underbelly.” Meaning through N.
Africa to and Italy.
Operation Torch
Launched in November of 42, was headed by Dwight
D. “Ike” Eisenhower. 400,000 men from Canada, U.S.
France, and Britain and about 850 ships attacked. By
May of 43, the trapped Italian-German troops
surrendered
In Tunisia.
Casablanca Conference
• Jan, 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt met
in Casablanca in a historic meeting of
the Big Two.
• Agreed to increase war in Pacific, invade
Sicily, increase pressure on Italy, and
insist on “unconditional surrender.” (used
by Grant in Civil war.
• This agreement also was a statement of
commitment to Stalin, who feared a
separate peace treaty from the western
European countries.
Unconditional Surrender
• Criticism
– Forced enemy to fight to the end and
not seek a cease-fire
– Also perhaps discouraged anti-war
groups from revolting
• However, there is little to no proof
stating the war was lengthened or
shortened due to the unconditional
surrender policy.
Italian campaign
• Sicily fell in August of 1943.
• Afterwards, Mussolini was deposed
and Italy unconditionally
surrendered.
• But…. The Nazis were still there.
• Fighting raged on and Rome was
taken in June of 1944, and the fight
continued in Italy until May 5, 1945.
• Italian campaign…Good or bad?
D-Day June 6, 1944
• Tehran Conference
– Big Three (Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill)
met to from Nov 28-Dec 1 1943
– Broad plans on how to attack in the West and
coordinate Soviet movements and attacks in
the East.
• Invasion of France was organized and lad
by Eisenhower.
• Allied powers chose Normandy France for
the attack.
D-Day
D-Day
Election of 1944
Thomas Dewey-R
FDR and Truman
FDR-Runs for 4th Term
FDR wins 432-99
Battle of the Bulge
• By December of 44, Germany seemed to
be on the brink of defeat.
– Sovets attacking in the east
– Round-the-Clock bombing from the Brits and
Americans
– Western Front about to buckle from attack
• Hitler made one last ditch attempt and
breaking the Allied lines in the Ardennes
forest, to capture Antwerp
• For ten Days, Hitler was successful, but
the 101st Airborne division held firm and
stopped their advance.
Battle of the Bulge
After defeating
Germans at
The Battle of the
Bulge, Americans
Advanced to
The Rhine by
March of 45 and
To the Elbe by
April of 45.
Germany defeated
• Soviets captured Berlin in April-may
of 45.
• April 30, Hitler committed suicide
after marrying his mistress Eva Braun
• However, on April 12, 1945,
Roosevelt died from a cerebral
hemorrhage.
Japan and the End of the War
• American submarines reduced Japan’s
merchant fleet to nothing. All told, 1042
ships were sunk, about 50 percent of
Japan’s fleet.
• Also, japans' cities were being reduced to
rubble by the constant barrage of American
bombers.
• March 9-10 1945, massive fire-bombing
destroyed Tokyo
– 250,000 buildings destroyed
– 83,000 people
– Damage was on same scale as the Atomic
Bombs
Japan and the End of the War
• MacArthur, with 600 ships and 250,000
men attacked Philippines:
– People of the Philippines, I have returned, rally
to me.
• Battle of Leyte Sea, last ditch effort by
Japanese to stop Americans, but
Americans win all three battles. (Oct 2326 1944)
• Philippines taken July of 45, but with
60,000 casualties.
• Iwo Jima taken March 45.
• Okinawa taken June of 45, but with
50,000 casulaties.
Iwo Jima Photo
Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima
V-E Day
On May 8, 1945 the surrender
Of Germany was officially
Proclaimed.
7 Future American Presidents
Views of the World Were Formed
by Their Service in World War II
The Beginning of the
Nuclear Age
It’s Finally Over!!!!!
WW II Memorial in
Washington, DC
Dedicated on April 29, 2004