Transcript WWII Homefront-Battles - Tville

World War II
Changes At Home, 1941-1945
U. S. Entry into War
• Response to Japanese
gamble at Pearl
Harbor
• Germany and Italy
declare war on the U.
S. on Dec. 11
– Bringing the U.S. into
the war in Europe
Changes on the Home Front
• U. S. had to mobilize society and economy at
unprecedented levels
• War shape experiences of a generation:
– and had particular impact on Women, AfricanAmericans, Native Americans, and JapaneseAmericans.
War Transforms a Nation
• Western states
experience population
boom due to war
industries
• Women serve in military
(over 200,000) and 6
million worked in war
related industries.
• Executive Order 8802 provides nondiscrimination in Defense hiring for African
Americans
• Military remained racially-segregated:
Tuskegee Airmen defy stereo-types, but
race riots occurred around bases where
large numbers of African Americans were
stationed.
Mobilization In the U.S.
• The war effort required all of America’s huge
productive capacity and full employment of the
workforce.
– Government expenditures soared.
• U.S. budget increases
– 1940 $9 million
– 1944 $100 million
– Expenditures in WWII greater than all previous
government budgets combined (150 years)
– GNP 1939 91 billion 1945 166 million
War Transforms a Nation
• 1943 Zoot Suit Riots
• 33% of eligible Native Americans Serve in War—
many as “Code Talkers”
• Executive Order 9066—Japanese Americans
interned
Native American Code Talkers
Zoot Suit Rioters
Japanese Internment
Restoration of U.S. Prosperity
• World War II ended the Great Depression.
• Factories run at full capacity
– Ford Motor Company – one bomber plane per
hour
• People save money (rationing)
• Army bases in South provide economic boom
(most bases in South b/c of climate)
• The national debt grew to $260 billion (6
times its size on Dec. 7, 1941)
Key Battles
A Grand Alliance
The Big Three
– Great Britain (Winston
Churchill)
– The U.S. (FDR)
– The Soviet Union
(Joseph Stalin)
Strategies for War
– Defeat Germany first,
then focus on Japan
Gloom & Doom for the Allied
Powers
• By 1942- the Allies faced defeat.
– The chain of spectacular victories disguised fatal
weaknesses within the Axis alliance:
• Japan and Germany fought separate wars, each on
two fronts. They never coordinated strategies.
– The early defeats also obscured the Allies’ strengths:
• The manpower of the Soviet Union and the
productive capacity of the United States.
Invasion of the Soviet Union
• It was then that Hitler made his pivotal mistake. He
invaded the Soviet Union.
– The obliteration of Bolshevism was a key element of Hitler’s
ideology; however, it was a gigantic military mistake.
• On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa,
consisting of an attack army of 4 million men spread out
along a 2,000-mile front in three massive offensives.
• The German army quickly advanced, but at a terrifying
cost. For the next three years, 90 percent of German
deaths would happen on the eastern front.
Action in the Pacific
• Pacific had become a Japanese Empire
– Spring ’42 the Philippines fell to Japan
Philippines.
• U. S. victories at Coral Sea (May 7-8,
1942), Midway (June 4-5, 1942), and
Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942-February 21,
1943) arrested Japanese expansion, and
crippled their naval airpower
• This permits U. S. to focus on Europe
The Pacific Theater: Early Battles
• American Forces halted the Japanese advances in two decisive
naval battles.
– Coral Sea (May 1942)
• U.S. stopped a fleet convoying Japanese troops to New
Guinea
• Japanese designs on Australia ended
– Midway (June 1942)
• Japanese Admiral Yamamoto hoped to capture Midway
Island as a base to attack Pearl Harbor again
• U.S. Admiral Chester Nimitz caught the Japanese by surprise
and sank 3 of the 4 aircraft carriers, 332 planes, and 3500
men.
– American cryptanalysts
War in Europe
• Operation Torch (November 1943)
• Casablanca Conference (1943)—unconditional
surrender of Axis
• Battle of Atlantic—won by U. S. in 1943
• Sicily invaded on July 10, 1943
• September 1944, Italy mainland invaded
• Anzio landings on January 22, 1944
• Rome fell on June 4, 1944
Operation Overlord and After
• Teheran Conference—Cross-channel invasion
• June 6, 1944—landings in Normandy (5,000 U. S.
casualties on Day One)
• Paris fell August 25, 1944
• Battle of the Bulge, Dec. 16, 1944—January 26,
1945
• March 7, 1945, Bridge at Remagen seized
• May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered
Ike with Paratroopers
What the Allies found in the 3rd Reich
War in the Pacific
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Island Hoping and Leapfrogging
January 1943, New Guinea Invaded
Tarawa invaded, Nov. 20, 1943
Marianas secured on June 19, 20, 1944
Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 25, 1944
Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945
Okinawa, April 1, 1945
War in the Pacific
• U. S. plans to invade Japan: Operations Coronet
and Olympic, but war casualties rise
• Firebombing raids on Tokyo, March 1945
• Decision to use Atomic Bomb
• August 6, 1945—Hiroshima; August 9, 1945,
Nagasaki
• Japanese sue for peace on August 14, 1945
• Formal Surrender on U. S. Missouri, September 2,
1945.
Hiroshima: courtesy RW & B
Ongoing Controversies
• Did FDR know about Pear Habor in
advance?
• Could U. S. have done something to liberate
death camps sooner?
• Did the U. S. really need to nuke Japan?
Balance Sheet
• 17 Million soldiers and 19 million civilians
died world wide
• War cost approximately
$1,000,000,000,000
• 6 million Soviets died in Battle
• U. S. lost 294,000 servicemen in combat,
600,000 wounded, and 114,000 others
killed in war related accidents.
U. S. Military Cemetery at Omaha Beach
U. S. Cemetery, Luxembourg