Transcript Document

World War II: The Front Lines
• Before the war
• The war in Europe
• Attitudes toward the war in the US
• US enters the war
• Pearl Harbor
• Government wartime propaganda
• The front lines
• The Pacific
• Europe
• End of War
• Liberating consentration camps
• US and the Soviet Union
Before the War > Events leading up to the attack & H.V. Kaltenborn on Hitler’s
speech, 1938
• 1922 Benito Mussolini comes to power in Italy
• September 1931 Japan occupies Manchuria
• March 1933 Adolf Hitler seizes power
• May 1933 Japan quits League of Nations
• 1936 Spanish Civil War against Franco
• August 1937 Japan invades China
• October 1937 FDR calls for international cooperation against aggression
• March 1938 Germany annexes Austria
• September 1938 Munich agreement lets Germany annex Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia
• November 1938 Kristallnacht, Nazis attack Jews and destroy Jewish property
• March 1939 Germany annexes remainder of Czechoslovaka
• August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union sign nonagression pact
• September 1939 Germany invades Poland; World War II begins
•April-June 1940 Bliztkrieg (Germany conquers much of Western Europe)
• September 1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan (the Axis powers) conclude a military alliance
• September 1940 First peacetime draft in American history
• November 1940 FDR elected for a third term
• March 1941 Lend-Lease Act extends aid to Great Britain
• May 1941 Germans secure the Balkans
• June 1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union
• August 1941 The United States and Great Britain agree to the Atlantic Charter
• December 1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
Before the War > War of the Worlds broadcast, October 30, 1938
Before the War > Antiwar labor pamphlet
Before the War > North American Aviation advertisement, Collier’s, 1942
Before the War > Omaha high school student’s fascist sticker, 1938
Pearl Harbor > US Ships during Pearl Harbor attack, 1941
Pearl Harbor > Live KTU broadcast from Hawaii during the attack
Reporter: Hello, NBC. Hello, NBC. This is KTU in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am speaking from
the roof of the Advertiser Publishing Company Building. We have witnessed this morning
the distant view a brief full battle of Pearl Harbor and the severe bombing of Pearl Harbor
by enemy planes, undoubtedly Japanese. The city of Honolulu has also been attacked and
considerable damage done. This battle has been going on for nearly three hours. One of the
bombs dropped within fifty feet of KTU tower. It is no joke. It is a real war. The public of
Honolulu has been advised to keep in their homes and away from the Army and Navy.
There has been serious fighting going on in the air and in the sea. The heavy shooting
seems to be . . . a little interruption. We cannot estimate just how much damage has been
done, but it has been a very severe attack. The Navy and Army appear now to have the air
and the sea under control.
Operator: Ah, just a minute. . . . This is the telephone company. This is the operator.
Reporter: Yes.
Operator: We have quite a big call, an emergency call.
Reporter: We’re talking to New York now.
Propaganda > Anti-Nazi poster, 1942
Propaganda > Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on Collier’s cover, 1942
Propaganda > OWI short Justice, 1945
Propaganda > Frank Capra, The Negro Soldier, 1942
QuickTime™ and a
Sorenson Video decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Pearl Harbor > Pearl Harbor hero Doris (“Dorie”) Miller poster
Propaganda > Betty Grable
Propaganda > Lena Horne, the most popular pinup among black soldiers
Propaganda > Betty Grable and Her Bombardiers in All-Star Bond Rally
Front Lines > Some key events of World War II
• December 1941 - Pearl Harbor
• February 1942 - Executive Order mandates internment of Japanese Americans
• May-June 1942 - US wins naval superiority in the Pacific
• November 1942 - US lands in North Africa
• January 1943 - Casablanca Conference announces unconditional surrender policy
• February 1943 - Soviet victory over Germans in Stalingrad
• May 1943 - German troops surrender in Africa
• July 1943 - Allied invasion of Italy
• June-August 1944 - US lands in Normandy; liberates Paris
• November 1944 - FDR is elected to fourth term
• February 1945 - Yalta conference renews US-Soviet alliance
• February-June 1945 - US captures Iwo Jima and Okinawa
• April 1945 - FDR dies; Harry Truman becomes president
• May 1945 - Germany surrenders
• August 1945 - US drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders
Front Lines > War in Europe
Front Lines > Wartime broadcasts of Edward Murrow and others from London:
Trafalgar Square, Rooftop air raid report, and US bombing run
Front Lines > Cartoon from Yank: The Army Weekly, 1943
Front Lines > Ben Hurwitz, inside a troop ship, 1943
Front Lines > An African American GI escorts captured German soldiers
Front Lines > War in the Pacific
Front Lines > War in the Pacific from the soldiers’ point of view
U.S. Marine, Guam, 1944
This foxhole is about two feet deep.
Now, I would like to be able to speak
louder and with more clarity, but
unfortunately, the slightest noise, the
slightest rustle, will draw fire not only
from the Japanese, who are someplace,
perhaps, in the dense foliage around us
or up on the ridge, but from our own
Marines who are huddled nearby in
foxholes like this one. I don’t know
how they [the Japanese] do it. We can
lie here absolutely breathless listening
to the slightest sounds and not see
anything—in fact, not hear anything—
and then we wake up and find that
they’re all around us. And it’s a very
tough and tedious job to root them out,
[inaudible] them and exterminate them.
We lost quite a few people in our unit.
A very popular captain was killed.
Yoshida Kashichi, Guadalcanal, 1942
No matter how far we walk
We don’t know where we’re going
Trudging along under dark jungle growth
When will this march end?
Hide during the day
Move at night
Deep in the lush Guadalcanal jungle
Our rice is gone
Eating roots and grass
Along the ridges and cliffs
Leaves hide the trail, we lose our way
Stumble and get up, fall and get up
Covered with mud from our falls
Blood oozes from our wounds
No cloth to bind our cuts
Flies swarm to the scabs
No strength to brush them away
Fall down and cannot move
How many times I’ve thought of suicide.
Front Lines > American soldier killed by mortar fire, 1944
Front Lines > Bill Maudlin, “Up Front,” Stars and Stripes, 1945
“Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory, are bringing in
thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners.”
End of War > Bodies of victims in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp
End of War > Six-year-old orphan wearing a Buchenwald badge
End of War > American and Russian Troops, 1945