Transcript WORLD WAR II AND THE HOMEFRONT

WORLD WAR II
AND
THE HOMEFRONT
TOTAL WAR
• Total war involved an interrelationship
between:
• 1) nation’s economy
• 2) technology
• 3) mobilization of civilian population
• Degrees of commitment & output = a
nation’s chance for victory
• Aggressors have early edge b/c of prep
time
Joseph
Goebbels
GERMANY
• Hitler had industry concentrate on
consumer goods to keep morale up
• Goebbels mobilized press, radio & film to
gain support for war
• Early successes brought civilian
confidence up
• Doubt & fear return b/c:
• 1) failure to knock Britain out of war
• 2) invasion of USSR & setback at Moscow
• 3) more wounded soldiers on streets at
home
Fritz Todt
Albert Speer
GERMANY
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4) Stalingrad defeat
5) Allied bombing raids
War economy leaders:
1) Fritz Todt – 1940-42
2) Albert Speer – 1942-45
1943 – German economy on full wartime
level; too late?
• Food shortages solved by exploiting
countries under their control
GERMANY
• Shortage of men = labor problems; solved
by:
• 1) foreign slave (use of fear)
• 2) women
• Hitler belief for women: “children, church &
kitchen,” but by 1943, women 17-45
register for compulsory labor
BRITAIN
• Pre-1940:
• 1) wanted war w/ limited liability – naval
blockade, French Army & Maginot Line
• 2) economy dominated by consumer
goods
• 3) no stockpile of food & raw materials
(phony war?)
• Brit gov’t focused on:
• 1) air defenses
• 2) evacuations
BRITAIN
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Post-1940 changes:
1) formation of war cabinet
2) increase of aircraft production
3) all economy comes under gov’t control
4) men 18-50 to armed forces or industrial
service
• 5) Women 19-45 for war work
• 500K women in auxiliary military roles
BRITAIN
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Reasons for “happy” workplace:
1) end of unemployment
2) overtime pay
3) price controls
4) better standard of living
5) patriotism
Reciprocal Aid Agreement – “reverse lendlease”; aid to US forces in Brit. = $6B
BRITAIN
• Wartime in Brit. = shortages, rationing,
long lines for few goods, air raid shelters
• US troops in Brit. – “Americans are
overpaid, oversexed, and over here”; 70K
Brit. women become US war brides
• US reply: “the British are underpaid,
undersexed and under Eisenhower”
• All political parties involved in war effort &
directing country = non-partisan support
USSR
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Major (Stalin responsible) problems:
1) disregard for human life
2) refusal to heed war warnings
3) keeping troops close to border (POWs)
4) no evacuation or surrenders allowed
5) no movement of industry to interior until
later; much fell to early Germ. advances
• 6) lack of coordination b/t Stalin & war
cabinet
USSR
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Labor shortage reasons:
1) many skilled workers to army
2) military losses required replacements
3) factory workers trapped in enemyoccupied areas
• 4) unskilled replacement workers = less
quality & efficiency
• 5) teenage boys, 50+ men, & women fill in
• By 1944 – women = 75% of farm workers
& 60% of industry
USSR
• 1M women in military – both combat & noncombat positions
• Political and criminal prisoners worked as
slave laborers
• Food shortage – scorched earth policy &
best land overtaken early by Germany
• Food restricted (by rationing) to people
involved in war effort
• Stalin appeals to patriotism - Great Patriotic
War – “save Holy Mother Russia”
USSR
• Crusade vs. Germ. – fate awaiting
Russians if Germany wins the war united
the civilian population
• Churches allowed to reopen – rallied
citizens to war effort & rekindled religious
revival
• Stalin blames gov’t for early losses &
takes credit for final victories
• POWs (captured by Germ.) treated as
traitors after returning home
JAPAN
• Propaganda glorifies early victories and
censorship ignores or distorts defeats
• Japan at a disadvantage:
• 1) population ½ of US
• 2) industrial potential of 1/7th of US
• 3) US had 78 X as many raw materials
• 4) Japan still had small plot agriculture
• Death blows to economy – fire bombing &
US sub strangulation of supply line to SE
Asia
JAPAN
• Army & Navy feud led to total lack of
coordination
• 1) individual industrial needs filled w/o
consideration of war effort
• 2) bickering over design & production of
planes led to a 1943 amt. 1/5th of potential
• 3) army controls 85% of oil supply; navy
has critical shortage, while army has
surplus
JAPAN
• Labor shortage filled by students, Korean &
Chinese slaves, POWs
• Women (only job was “producing & caring
for children”) finally go to work in 1943
• Food production decline:
• 1) women, old men, boys & girls replace
draftees
• 2) imports decline b/c sub attacks
(especially rice)
• 3) fish scarce with fishermen in service &
US sub threat
Henry Kaiser
“Sir Launchalot”
John W. Brown – WW2 Liberty Ship
Henry Ford’s Willow Run B-24 Bomber Plant, Michigan
USA
• Auto plants converted to make trucks,
jeeps, tanks, aircraft
• Shipyards turn out large numbers of
warships & merchant ships
• Henry Kaiser – “Sir Launchalot” – used
assembly line techniques to speed up
production of Liberty ships
• 1942 – US production = Axis production,
1943 = 1.5 X Axis, 1944 = 2 X Axis
• Food production increases take care of US
and Allied needs
USA
• Labor shortage solutions:
• 1) Great Migration (the 2nd) – blacks from
South to North & West
• The threat of a March on Washington
addresses discrimination in defense
industries
• 2) 2M women in defense industries
• 3) US kept skilled workers in ship
production jobs
• Paying for the war ($300B):
• 1)increase income & war profits taxes
Esther Williams’ square at Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theater
USA
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2) placed excise taxes on luxuries
3) war bond drives cover 60% of costs
Minorities in the service:
1) 2 Black infantry divisions served in
Pacific & Italy
2) Tuskegee Airmen in Italy
3) Navajo Indians (code talkers) in Pacific
4) Japanese Nisei in Italy
5) women in WAC, WAVES, WAAF
Tuskegee Airmen
NAMES OF AIRPLANES
PLANES
WO-TAH-DE-NE-IH
DIVE BOMBER
GINI
TORPEDO PLANE TAS-CHIZZIE
OBS. PLANE
NE-AS-JAH
FIGHTER
DA-HE-TIH-HI
BOMBER
JAY-SHO
PATROL PLANE
GA-GIH
TRANSPORT
ATSAH
AIR FORCE
CHICKEN HAWK
SWALLOW
OWL
HUMMING BIRD
BUZZARD
CROW
EAGLE
NAMES OF SHIPS
SHIPS
TOH-DINEH-IH
BATTLESHIP
LO-TSO
CARRIER
TSIDI-MOFFA-YE-HI
SUBMARINE
BESH-LO
MINE SWEEPER
CHA
DESTROYER
CA-LO
TRANSPORT
DINEH-NAY-YE-HI
CRUISER
LO-TSO-YAZZIE
PT BOAT
TSE-E
SEA FORCE
WHALE
BIRD CARRIER
IRON FISH
BEAVER
SHARK
MAN CARRIER
SMALL WHALE
MOSQUITO
442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy
USA
• War-related government agencies:
• War Production Board – allocated
resources & regulated production; involved
in rationing
• Office of Economic Stabilization –
controlled wages, rents, prices, profits
• Office of War Mobilization – power over
entire home front
USA
• National War Labor Board – solved labormanagement problems
• OSRD – Office of Scientific Research and
Development – scientists in the war effort
• upgrades in radar, sonar, DDT, penicillin,
& atomic bomb
INTERNMENT CAMPS
• Executive Order 9066 – created exclusion
zones on West coast
• 120K moved to relocation camps
• Korematsu v. US – protection against
espionage more important than civil rights
• Jan. 2, 1945 - Exclusion order rescinded;
internees given $25 and train ticket home
• JACL – gets: $25K, apology from US,
funds for education foundation for J-A
children
MANHATTAN PROJECT
• J. Robert Oppenheimer – head of the
scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico
• Leslie Groves – military leader in charge
• 7/16/1945 - Trinity Test – Alamogordo,
N.M.; 20 KT TNT explosion w/ plutonium
• 2 bombs developed – 1) Uranium-235
(Hiroshima)
2) plutonium (Nagasaki)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Leslie Groves
100 ft. tower built to hold
the test bomb
“The Gadget”
In position at top
of the tower
The last color
photograph of the
explosion in
New Mexico
Ground zero after explosion
Oppenheimer and Groves
inspecting the explosion site
Hiroshima bomb
Nagasaki bomb