Transcript U.S. Enters the War

U.S. in World War II
 Objectives
 Describe challenges &
successes mobilizing for war
 Describe how war impacted
Americans at home
 Summarize how Allies win
war in Europe
 Describe Allied offensive against
Japanese
 Explain why Atomic bomb dropped
 Describe how war affected
minorities
Dec. 7, 1941 “Day of Infamy”
President Roosevelt Addresses Congress Dec. 8, 1941
Declare war on Japan; Join Allies
U.S. Enters the War
 Enlarged
Military
 5 million volunteered
 Selective Service
○ 10 million drafted
○ 8 weeks training
 Propaganda
Wartime Production
 1942
- War Production Board
 Industries changeover to war materials
 1943
- Office of War Mobilization
 Centralized resources-gov’t decides
 Ford Motor Co. – B-24 Liberator bombers
○ Assembly line techniques
 Henry Kaiser – mass production
○ Liberty Ships – production time reduced
200 to 40 days
Ford’s Willow Run Factory B-24 Bombers
Liberty Ships Under Construction
Liberty Ships
Wartime Production
 Unemployment
 By
vanishes
1945
 Thousands planes, ships, rifles, tanks,
armored cars, etc., being produced
 Wages
go up
 Cost of living goes up
 Union membership goes up
 Federal debt goes up
War at Home
 Shortages & rationing
 Food supply down
 Inflation up – Office of Price Administration
 Fair distribution of scarce items
 Activities
 Reading, music, baseball, movies
○ Abbott & Costello
 Birthrate increases
 Night time blackout drills
 Tin collection drives
Rationing
War at Home
 Victory
Gardens supply produce for
troops & families
 Tomatoes, peas, radishes
 Parking lots, playgrounds
 Office of War Information - 1942
 Propaganda
 Maintain morale and support for war effort
○ Hire artists – strengthen patriotic feelings
○ Norman Rockwell – Four Freedoms
Victory Gardens &
Propaganda
Norman Rockwell, artist
Wartime Diversity
Issues
1,000,000 African Americans
 1st supporting roles
 Late 1942 – serve in
separate units
300,000 Mexican Americans
33,000 Japanese Americans
25,000 Native Americans
13,000 Chinese Americans
–“just carve on my
tombstone, ‘here lies a
black man killed
fighting a yellow man
for the protection of a
white man.’”
Wartime Diversity Issues



Tuskegee Airmen – 1st
AA flying unit
Late 1944 – combat
units integrate
Philip Randolph
 Threatened March on
Washington for “right to
work and fight for our
country.”
• FDR issued executive order – Full & equitable participation
of all workers in defense industry – “no discrimination of
race, creed, color, or national origin.”
Navajo Code Talkers
Women in the War
Women
 WAVES - Navy
 SPAR
○ Coast Guard
 WAFS
○ women’s auxiliary
firing squadron
 WASP
○ air force service pilots
–WAAC (WAC)
•Women’s Auxiliary Army Corp.
Women at Home
 By
1944
 6 million workers
were women
 Myth – women were
too slow, not strong
enough
 Paid 60% of what men
make
 “Rosie” encouraged
women to work
“Rosie the Riveter”
Minorities and the War

Despite discrimination
– minority groups get
chance to show what
they can do & see
advancement in
opportunities
War Strategy
 Dec.
22, 1941
Whitehouse meeting
• Over 3 weeks,
Churchill convinced
FDR that Hitler was
larger threat than
Japan
•
1st
military goal:
○ Defeat Germany &
Italy
Churchill & Roosevelt
Battle of the Atlantic
German Wolf Packs – groups of subs
 Goal
 Cutoff Allied supply lines-food, arms, oil, tanks,
planes, etc.
 87 ships sunk in 4 months
 681 in 7 months
 Battle went on for years
 If Allies didn’t win this
“war,” WW2 would
have been lost
 US Ships, planes help
Britain win
Fighting Back – War in Atlantic
 Fighting
German U-boats, submarines
 FDR says
“Shoot on sight”
U.S. fights back against U-boats
 U.S.
Convoys formed
 Equipped with radar, sonar
 Allows U.S. to find & destroy German
U-boats faster then can be built.
 140 Liberty Ships/month
Hitler Attacks Soviets
 June
1941
 Hitler attacks Soviet Union
○ Despite Nonaggression Pact
 Invaded over 1,800 miles
 Captured 2 million Russian
soldiers by Nov.
 Germany halted 25 miles outside
of Moscow
○ Russian winter set in
○ Fierce Russian resistance
Stalingrad & Leningrad
 Germans
push towards
Stalingrad & Leningrad
 Deadliest battle in
human history
 Oil in Caucasus
 Bomb, burn
 Hand-to-hand combat
 Russians want to
surrender
 Germans hold 90% of
city by winter ’42
Soviets to Stalingrad
– advance
tanks over ice
 Trap Germans in city
 Soldiers starve
 Winter
 Want to surrender
 Hitler – No!
 Jan
’43 surrender
 Soviets move toward
Germany
• Not enough troops to invade
France – yet!
• Help Britain in N. Africa
• Fighting since 1940
• Success in Egypt & Libya
• “Soft underbelly of Axis
Powers”
British General
Bernard Montgomery
U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower
German General
Erwin Rommel
Fighting in N. Africa & Italy
 Allies
need to capture North Arica so
they can get into Italy
 Very
difficult to fight in desert
 Hitler
sends 20,000 more troops
General Rommel – called
Desert Fox because he’s so good at
fighting with tanks in the desert
 German
Fighting in N. Africa & Italy
 US
loses at Kasserine Pass
 “America losses her battle innocence”
 British & US combine forces

By May 1943 - Germans & Italians in North
Africa surrender to Allied troops
Fighting in N. Africa & Italy
 Allies
capture Sicily
 Mussolini stripped of power, arrested
 “Most hated man in Italy” - Killed
 He & mistress hung upside down
 Eventually, Allies drive Axis powers
out of Italy
 Thousands of soldiers die
 June 1944, Allied forces won
Italian Campaign - Bloody Anzio
Planning for D-Day
 Stalin,
Roosevelt, and Churchill meet
 Plan to invade France from Southern
Great Britain
 In preparation for it
 Carpet bomb Germany
Planning for D-Day
 Carpet
bombing of Germany
 Dropped 2,697,473 bombs
 Killed 305,000 civilians
 Damaged 5.5 million homes
 Wiped out railroads, bridges, oil fields,
etc.
 Goal: Stop Germany’s ability to move
troops to Normandy beaches once
attack starts
Hamburg
Operation Overlord
 Goal:
Invade NW Europe to reach
Germans
 General Eisenhower – Supreme
Commander
 Operation Neptune: Establish a
beachhead in Normandy, France -“D-Day: June 6, 1944”
 Troops: British, U.S., Canadian,
Polish, Dutch, Belgian, French
Phantom Army
Fake radio messages
 Double agents
 Phony military base – Dover, England
 Buildings, Planes, tanks, jeeps,

housing
 Made of cardboard, wood, rubber,
paper

Led Germans to believe attack would be
at Calais
 Narrowest point of English Channel
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord
 23,000 paratroopers behind enemy lines
 Over 150,000 troops land on beaches
 Charge enemy lines on open beaches
 Massive bombardment, but massive
devastation
 Chaos – screaming, soldiers hit left &
right, bodies everywhere, nothing to hide
behind
Results:
 Two
week duration
 Allies held 80 mile strip of beachheads.
 Causalities were atrocious
Mulberry Harbor

Artificial harbor built at the beaches
 Towed huge concrete ports
 Sunk 70 old ships as breakwaters
Beginning of End for Hitler
>4,600 invasion craft and warships
 >1,000 bombers hit German defenses
 >14,000 aircraft sorties
 Took 60 miles of Normandy coast
 12,000 casualties in prep for D-Day
 D-Day: 10,000 Allied casualties – 2,500 dead
 Total

 >425,000 Allied and German troops killed,
wounded or missing in Battle for Normandy
Major Victory and Turning Point
• Beginning of end for Hitler
– Within one year, Germany surrenders
– 1 week after D-Day .5 million troops ashore
– Late July – 2 million Allied troops in France
• French Resistance & Allied forces free Paris Aug. 25, 1944
• Charles de Gaulle takes over French
provisional government
Allies Take Back France

Massive air and land strike against St.
Lo.
 General Omar Bradley
 Broke German line of defense
 Led way for . . .

Third Army to reach Seine River





August 25, 1944
Under U.S. General George Patton &
French resistance fighters
French capital taken back by French
General Charles de Gaulle
Battle of the Bulge
 October
1944
 U.S. captured first German town,
Aachen
 Mid-December German counteroffensive
 To recapture Belgian Port of Antwerp
 Drive 60 miles into Allied territory
 Creates “bulge”
Battle of the Bulge
 Generals Patton & Bradley
 1st & 3rd Armies push Germans back to Germany
 Battle
lasted 1 month
 Largest loss in life on the Western
front
 Germans: lost 120,000 troops, 600
tanks, and 1,600 planes
 600,000 U.S. troops involved
○ 80,000 killed, wounded or captured

Germans: Knew couldn’t win the war
Liberation of Europe
 Allied
troops march east towards heart
of Germany
 Soviets keep moving westward across
Poland
 Find Concentration camps
 Majdanek – thousands starving, gas
chambers
 Troops in the west find more camps,
horrors
Yalta Conference - Feb. 1945
Results
• Divided Germany into four zones
• Poland & Eastern Europe-free elections
• S.U. declares
war against Japan
• S.U. will join
United Nations
Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill
Goodbye Roosevelt
 April
12, 1945
 Roosevelt passes
away
 Stroke
 Posing for a portrait
Harry Truman
33rd President
 V.P. to Roosevelt
 Former Senator of Missouri
 Weak relationship with
Roosevelt

 No idea of atomic
weapon
 Foreign affairs new to
him
Germany’s Last
Straw
 April
25, 1945
 U.S. and Soviet forces
meet at Torgau,
Germany on Elbe River
Marking the Soviet Union's
victory, a soldier raises the
Soviet flag over the German
Reichstag in Berlin.
•Soviet Army storms Berlin
•Destroyed Berlin -- house-to-house
Hitler Meets His End
April 29, 1945
 Hitler married Eva Braun
 Wrote last address to
German people
 Would not surrender;
rather die.
 April 30,1945
 Commits suicide with

wife and dog.
 Has bodies burned
Germany Surrenders
May 7,1945,
Germans
Surrender
 V-E day (Victory
over Europe Day)
May 8

V-E Day - Victory in Europe 5/8/45
Japanese Victories

Japan captured:
 Guam, Wake Island, Philippines,
Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma
 US had been in Philippines since
late 1800s
 Drove out General McArthur -
commanded US & Filipino troops
in Philippines
 Japanese troops put Bataan
under siege
General MacArthur
Bataan Death March
 Japanese
captured thousands of US
and Filipino troops
 Made
them march 65 miles to a
prison camp
 They
were starving, no water
 Civilians
tried to give them food, but
soldiers shot them, if they ate it
War with Japan
– Tokyo Bombed
 Battle of Coral Sea – May
1942
 Strategy – Island hopping
 Battle of Midway -1942
 Guadalcanal
 Leyte Gulf, Philippines - 1944
 1942
New defense tactic - Kamikaze
“Divine Wind” - Suicide bombers
 7,465 Kamikazes flew to their deaths

–120 US ships
sunk, many more
damaged
–3,048 Allied
sailors killed,
another 6,025
wounded
–-80,000 Japanese
deaths
Iwo Jima
700 Miles from Japan – fighting grows fierce
 Took over a month
to secure island
 110,000 Allied
soldiers invade

 25,000 casualties

>20,000 Japanese
 Only 200 left to
surrender
Mount Suribachi
“. . . uncommon valor was a common virtue.”
Okinawa
350 miles from
Japan
 Japanese soil
 2,000 Kamikazes &
Banzai charges
 180,000 Allied
troops
 50,000 U.S.
casualties
 Costliest battle in
the Pacific

U.S.: How will we win? How many more lost lives?
End of the War – Atomic Bomb
1939 – Albert Einstein letter to FDR
 Manhattan Project organized 1941

○ Robert Oppenheimer – director
○ Los Alamos, New Mexico – 3,000 workers
○ April 1945 – FDR dies – Truman’s decision
○ July 16, 1945: 1st test in desert

Aug. 6 Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” on
Hiroshima
 80,000 instantly dead
 Aug.
9 Bockscar dropped “Fat Man” on
Nagasaki
 74,000 instantly dead
Hiroshima
After
Nagasaki
Before/After
Bombing of
Nagasaki
“My God, what have we done.” Robert Lewis, Co-pilot Enola Gay
Why Did U.S. Drop A-Bomb?
Save American lives – Japanese would fight
to bitter end
 Invasion of Japan would have been worst
battle of entire war – millions would die
 Truman wants to end war quickly – wants
Japan to surrender
 Also, demonstrate U.S. military power to
Soviets – foreshadowing of Cold War to
come

V-J Day – Victory Over Japan
• Aug. 14, 1945 Japan
surrenders
• Aug. 15 - V-J day
• Sept. 2 – Official
surrender aboard USS
Missouri
•MacArthur leads Japan,
writes Constitution
“Times Square Kiss”
Japanese Internment

President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 –
Feb. 1942
 Authorizes Secretary of War to remove “aliens” from
military zones on West Coast
 War Relocation Authority moved 110,000 Japanese
citizens and non-citizens to camps
○ Located in remote locations
○ Lost homes, businesses, assets
○ Surrounded by barbed wire
○ Limited bathrooms, eating areas
○ Korematsu v. U.S. – Supreme Court rules
necessary – “military imperative”
○ Leave camps in 1945
Reparations
 Considered
one of worst violations of
peoples’ civil liberties
 1988
 U.S. government apologizes
 Pays $20,000 to surviving internees
 Despite discrimination
 17,000 Nisei volunteer for military
Nuremberg Trials
 International
Military Tribunal
Nazi leaders – crimes against
peace and humanity, war crimes
 Charge
 12
of 24 receive death sentences
 Establish
principle
 People are responsible for their own
actions
 “Just following orders” doesn’t fly
Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials

Burchett was among the first to witness and describe radiation sickness.
The patterns of clothes burnt by the heat rays.
on a chunk of rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter. His dispatch began:
"In Hiroshima, thirty days after the first atomic bomb destroyed the city and shook the world, people are still dying, mysteriously and horribly-people who were uninjured in the
cataclysm from an unknown something which I can only describe as the atomic plague."
He continued, tapping out the words that still haunt to this day: "Hiroshima does not look like a bombed city. It looks as if a monster steamroller has passed over it and
squashed it out of existence. I write these facts as dispassionately as I can in the hope that they will act as a warning to the world."