Transcript America in WWII

The Allies Trade Space for Time
 After Pearl Harbor
 Nationalism in America hit
an all-time high
 Isolationism died forever
 The people of America
want revenge
 FDR
 Decided to get Germany
first because Hitler posed
the greatest threat
The Sleeping Giant Awakens
 Preparing for war
 America turns industry into a total war machine
 Major industrial businesses (Ford, GE, Dupont, U.S. Steel etc…)
shut down consumer production, and turn full focus on
producing equipment for war.
 Organizing a massive military
 America’s military grows to about 15 million men and women
 7 million American men saw combat in WW2
Civil Liberties Attacked
 FDR issues Executive Order
9066 which ordered JapaneseAmericans on the west coast
to be placed in Internment
Camps
 The internment camps
would “eliminated” the
threat of Japanese spies
 The Japanese that were sent
were denied due process of
the law
 Korematzu v. the U.S.
(Supreme Court case)
 Upheld the constitutionality
of the internment camps
Ending the Depression
 1942
 The Great Depression officially ended!
 It was ended by $100 Billion in defense spending
 WWII, not the New Deal, had ended the Depression
 During WWII (1942-1945)
 National debt goes from $49 Billion to $259 Billion
 (Up 1363% since FDR took office in 1932)
War Production Board
 WPB
 Took control of industry
 Ended production of non-essential products (passenger cars,
consumer products)
 Turned peacetime companies into war machines
 Ford made tanks and planes, GE made bombs and guns, Smith
Corona shifted from typewriters to rifles.
Office of Price Administration
 Office of Price Administration
 Kept the wartime economy under control by:
1.
2.
3.
Set wage and price ceilings to ensure consumers weren't
affected by the rising inflation in the economy
Regulating tax code
Rationing of goods such as sugar, coffee, gasoline, foodstuffs
“Rosie the Riveter” Takes Over
 Women
 Played a huge role in
industrial war
production
 Made planes, ships,
tanks, artillery etc…
 They did the jobs the
men overseas could not.
 If not for the production
of women during WW2
the war effort would not
have been possible.
American Leaders in WWII
 U.S. Presidents – Franklin Roosevelt
 Supreme Commander of the Pacific Theater – General
Douglas MacArthur
 Supreme Commander of the European Theater – Dwight
D. Eisenhower
 General of the 3rd Armored Tank Division – George Patton
 Army Chief of Staff – George Marshall
 Admiral of the Navy (Pacific Theater) – Chester Nimitz
Slow Start in the Pacific
 The Japanese - Beat the
Americans in Guam and the
Philippines
 American suffered heavy
casualties
 General Douglas MacArthur

(American Supreme
Commander of the Pacific
Theater)
 was forced to sneak out of
the Philippines at night and
had to leave his troops to die
 Promised to return and
liberate the Philippines
Battle of the Coral Sea
 First Japanese – American Sea Battle
 Fought with planes off of two aircraft carriers
 Both sides had heavy losses
 The MOST important thing about the Battle of the Coral
Sea was:
 The U.S. intercepted Japanese message that revealed the
next target was the Island of Midway
The Battle of Midway
 Because of the intercepted letter
 The Americans were ready for the attack on Midway
 Instead of being surprised with an attack, the Americans did the
surprising
 Sunk four Japanese Aircraft carriers and took out dozens of planes.
 ***Midway is known as the turning point in the war in the
Pacific***
The U.S. Island Hopping
 The U.S. begins “island hopping” and taking one island at
a time (pushing back Japan)
 Guadalcanal, New Guinea
 Led by Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz and Douglas
MacArthur
 Making their way back to liberate the Philippines
Allied Halting of Hitler
 The Nazi “Afrika Korps”
 Led Nazi General Erwin
Rommel (The Desert
Fox)
 Pushing toward the
Suez Canal in Egypt
because the Nazis
wanted control of the
Middle Eastern oil
supply
Liberating Africa
Dwight D. Eisenhower
 Designs the assault on N.
Africa (Operation Torch)
to force the Nazis out of
Tunisia.
 North Africa (Tunisia)
was under the control of
the Afrika Korps led by
Nazi General Erwin
Rommel (The Desert
Fox)
Opening the 2nd front
 Bernard Montgomery (British General) and General
George Patton (American) lead the invasion of Africa in
Operation Torch.
 They are able to :
 stop the Nazi movement toward the middle east
 Force Erwin Rommel to retreat into Europe
 The 2nd front was opened to:
 ease the burden on the Soviets (The USSR lost 20 million
men by the war’s end)
 weaken Hitler’s forces by splitting them up.
Meeting in Casablanca
 Casablanca Conference
 FDR and Churchill meet
and agree to seek
unconditional surrender
from Germany
Stalingrad Turns the Tide
 Stalingrad (***Turning
point in Europe***)
 Because of the opening
of the 2nd front, the
Soviets are able to
reverse the German
advance and begin to
push the Nazis back
toward Germany
Into Italy
 In 1943 The Allies invade
Italy
 The Nazis take control in
Italy after Mussolini is
captured and jailed
(Mussolini was later killed
while trying to escape Italy)
 The invasion of Italy was
important because
 It diverted Hitler’s
attention to Southern
Europe
 It gave the Allies a chance
to invade Northern Europe
Patton’s Ghost Army
D-Day (Operation Overlord)
 June 6, 1944
 Planned by General Dwight
Eisenhower
 Largest sea, air, and land
attack in history
 The day the Allies invaded
Nazi occupied France
 The allies stormed the
beaches of Normandy
(France)
 Gained a foothold (80
miles wide)in France
 From here the allies would
begin to push the Nazis
back from the west.
Closing in on Berlin
 General George S. Patton
 In charge of the 3rd
Armored Tank Division
 Liberated Paris from the
Nazis
 Pushed the Nazis back
across the French
countryside and into
Germany
FDR’s 4th Term
 FDR runs for a 4th term and wins
 Harry Truman becomes his vice president
 FDR won because the war was going well
FDR Aging Quickly
1932
1945
The Battle of Ardennes
 AKA The Battle of the Bulge

Bastogne, Belgium
 The last Nazi offensive of
WWII
 The Nazis almost broke
through the American lines,
but the U.S. Army holds off
long enough for
reinforcements to arrive and
beat back the Nazis.
 December 26, 1944

General Patton’s third armored
division relieves the American
troops and ends Germany’s last
offensive attack of the war.
Pushing Toward Germany
 On the way to Berlin
 Americans (in the West)
and Soviets (in the East)
stumble across the Nazi
Death camps
 The Horrors of the death
camps become known
to the world
 Eisenhower forced
German citizens to
come look at what their
government had done.
The Death of FDR
 April 1945
 While vacationing in GA
 FDR has a brain aneurism and dies
 He missed the surrender of the Nazis by less than 2 weeks. 
On to Berlin
 The Soviets reach Berlin,
Germany first:
 Hitler hid in his bunker
with his mistress Eva
Braun
 They both committed
suicide
 May 7, 1945
 Germany Surrenders
 The next day is “V-E
Day” (Victory in Europe
Day)
The War with Japan Continues
 MacArthur
 Liberated the Philippines
(as he had promised)
 Iwo Jima (an island off
the mainland of Japan)
 Captured by the
Americans
 The battle provided
America with an airstrip
so they could bomb the
Japanese mainland
Okinawa
 Okinawa
 The last ground battle of WWII
 The last Japanese held island before the mainland
 Americans suffered 50,000 casualties
 Japanese suffered 110,000 casualties
 The Japanese launch the Kamikaze pilots (suicide bombers) in
desperation
 While they do kill some Americans, it also depletes much of the
Japanese arsenal
Changing Warfare Forever
 The Manhattan Project
 Top secret American
project to create a
nuclear bomb
 Led by J. Robert
Oppenheimer
 The Trinity test took
place in New Mexico.
Refusing to Surrender
 The Japanese refuse to
surrender after Okinawa
 Harry Truman authorized
the dropping of the first
nuke on Hiroshima
 Japanese still refuse to
surrender
 3 days later -Another nuke
is dropped on Nagasaki
 Japan surrendered 10 days
later
Accepting Surrender
 August 19, 1945
 Aboard the U.S.S.
Missouri
 General MacArthur and
Chester Nimitz accepts
the ceremonial
surrender from Emperor
Hirohito
The Result of the War
 Results:
 America came out of the
war stronger than ever
(politically, economically,
and socially)
 America and the Soviet
Union become the two
world powers
 450,000 Americans gave
their lives
 (1,000,000 total
casualties)
 The war costs were close to
$300 billion