Transcript British Colonies in America

The USA in WW II
Prior to the American invovlment
• American isolitionism
and non-interventionism
• Lend-Lease Act (1941)
• A total of $50.1bln
(equivalent to $759 bln
at 2008 prices) worth of
supplies shipped to the
UK, Soviet Union,
France and China
Roots of the Pacific Theater conflict
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Japan
– modernisation / westernisation of Japan
– Japanese expansionism
• imperial policy
• militarism
– Invasion of Manchuria (1931)
– Second Sino-Japanese War(1937)
– Invasion of French Indochina (1940)
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USA
– American expansionism?
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racial background:
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Chincese Exclusion Act of 1882
Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907
Immigration Act of 1917 (the Asiatic Barred Zone Act)
Immigration Act of 1924
Japanese natural resources crisis
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oil resources – none
Japan relies on importation of oil from the USA
USA put enforces embargo on exportation of oil to Japan
Japanese navy faces dramatic shrtage of oil (6 months wotrh supplies – hance
Japan faces being defenceless)
– Japanese dillemma: negotiate or execute a preventive attack
Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)
• four battleships sunk, four more
damaged
• 7 other ships sunk or destroyed
• 188 aircraft destroyed
• 2400 American lives lost
• isolitionism ends
• after Pearl Harbor the
Japanese march through
Southeast Asia and Cetnral
Pacific: Thailand, Malaysia,
Burma Singapore, the
Philippines, Rabaul (Papua
New Guinea) Dutch East India
(Indonesia)
USS West Virgninia burns
USS Arizona explodes
Japanese American Internment
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approx. 120.000 Japanese Americans placed in "War Relocation Camps"
exclusion from the military
yet: approx. 20.000 Japanese Maricans served in the Army, many having
signed loyalty oaths
442nd Regimental Combat Team – most decorated unit of its size during the
European campaign
Midway
• between 4 and 7 June
1942
• largest use of aircraft
carriers to date
• a decisive battle of
the Pacific Theater
• momentum changes
– the Japanese forces
stopped
• Island hopping follows
Island hopping
• Guadalcanal
• Iwo Jima
• Okinawa
Kamikaze attacks
• approx. 3800 kamikaze
pilots killed
• sank between 34 – 57
ships, including 3 escort
carriers and 14 destroyers
• damaged around 400 other
ships
• killed nearly 5.000 sailors,
wounded another 5.000
Bobming of Tokyo and raids on
other home islands cities
• General Curtis LeMay
– Robert McNamara
• series of "night fire-raids"
• most deadly: 9–10 March
1945 (25% of the city
destroyed, approx. 100.000
perished in the resulting fires)
• over 50% of Tokyo destroyed
by the end of the war
• between 220.000 – 500.000
killed in result of strategic
bombings
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Manhattan Project
• Potsdam ultimatum
• bombing of Hiroshima (August 6,
1945)
– "Litle Boy" kills approx. 140.000,
mostly civilians
• bombing of Nagasaki (August 9,
1945)
– "Fat Man" kills approx. 80.000,
mostly civilians
• August 15, 1945 – Japan
announces surrender (V-J Day)
• September 2, 1945 – Surrender
signed
A-Bomb controversies
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Did the bombings help end the war
sooner?
prevent invasion of Japan?
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save lives?
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100.000 POWs, Japanese civilians,
American soldiers
yet: were they war-crimes?
were they militarily unnecessary?
were they acts of state-terror?
atomic logic – new strategic questions
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massive losses anticipated
why was terror chosen over intimidation?
why was Nagasaki attacked?
waht would happen should American
intelligence concerning the Japanese
nuclear program fail?
started a nuclear era
intimidated the Soviets
secured the position of the USA as the
superpower
worst American publicity move to date
Battle of the Atlantic
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Lend-lease program
Convoys
Submarine warfare
– U-boots
– wolf-pack tactics
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Surface battleship / raiders
battle
– sinking of Bismarck
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How was the Battle of the
Atlantic won?
– closing of the mid-Atlantic
gap"
– new escorts tactics – new
classes of ships – destroyer
escorts, etc.
– new technologies: sonar,
radar
– breaking of the Enigma
Enigma
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German cryptographic machine used
for secret military communications –
deciphering of Enigma
communications most crucial for the
Battle of the Atlantic
first deciphered by the Polish Biuro
Szyfrów (Marian Rejewski)
the Poles decide to disclose details
of their work to Allies mid 1939
Allied effort at breaking of the
Enigma centered in Bletchley Park
Alan Turing
WW II cryptographic breakthroughs
lead to the construction of automated
logical machines and to building first
computers
Enigma – construction and
operation
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keyboard
plugboard
entry wheel
rotors
rotor – rings - indicators
reflector
PRINCIPLE:
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each time a key is pressed- electric current
goes from the key, through the plug board,
through the rotors, is reflected, goes back
through the rotors (through a different path!),
through the plug board, and to the light board)
each time a key is pressed – rotor advances
one position
after the right rotore advances 26 positions the
next one advances one position
a symbol is never encrypted as itself
number of possible configurations: approx.
10114 that is:
Enigma - security
• 10114 =
1000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000 of possible
configurations
Enigma – operation
TO ENCRYPT A MESSAGE
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place rotors in the order described in the codebook
and using the ring settings required by the codebook
(different for ever day of year, the same for all units in
a given force)
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connect the ports in the plug board in the order
described in the codebook
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follow the "indicator procedure"
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set the rotors to the initial positions required by the
codebook (e.g. A R G)
type in your own setting sequence twice ( e.g. E I N )
set the rotors to YOUR settings
type in plain text – cipher text will show on the light
board
TO DECRYPT THE MESSAGE
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place rotors in the order described in the codebook
and using the ring settings required by the codebook
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connect the ports in the plug board in the order
described in the codebook
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set the rotors to the initial positions required by the
codebook (A R G)
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type in 6 first symbols of the cipher text – you know
have the settings for the rotors chosen by the cipher
text Enigma operator
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set the rotors to the positions (E I N) deciphered from
the cipher text
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type in the cipher text – plaintext will show on the light
board
Breaking of the Enigma
• wiring of the rotors
• initial settings
– "cillies"
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cribs
"gardening"
bombes
by 1945 Allies could read all German
Enigma communications withind a
day or two
• Breaking of Lorenz (Fish)
– Collossus
• Breaking of PURPLE (Magic) –
American effort to read Japanese
diplomatic codes
European Theater 1942 - 1944
• Europe First
• Stalin presses for the
second European front –
Churchill convinces
Roosevelt Africa is the
gate to Southern Europe
• Operation Torch and
North Africa Campaign
• Invasion of Sicily
– Gen. George Patton
• Invasion of Italy
• Strategic bombing of
Germany
SS Robert Rowan explodes hit by a German bomber
Operation Overlord - D-Day (June
6, 1944 – Invasion of Normandy)
• Second front in
Europe
• "Europe first"
• D-Day
– 5000 ships involved
– over 175.000 troops
landing – amphibian
and airborne
– 2500 American lives
lost
– Omaha beach
European Theater 1944-1945
• Operation Cobra – from
Normandy across France
– liberation of Paris, August
25, 1944
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Operation Market Garden
Battle of the Bulge
Race to Berlin
May 2, 1945 – Germans
surrender Belin to the
Soviets
• May 8, 1945 – V-E Day –
German surrender signed
Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam
Conferences
Aftermath of the W II
The Holocaust
• more than a third of the Jewish global
population perished – estimated nearly
6.000.000 people
Aftermath of the W II
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50.000.000 – 70.000.000 people dead
Europe in ruins
Garmany occupied and later divided
Japan humiliated and occupied
revisions of borders
population relocations – repatriations and expulsions
decolonisation
emergence of the UN
emergence of two superpowers – a bipolar world
– Soviet Bloc
• technological advancements
Aftermath of the W II – American
Perspective
• 420.000 deaths (out of 11.260.000 military
personnel)
• nuclear superpower
• Marshall plan
• period of wealth and economic stability
followed
• role of women
• G. I. Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act )