Transcript (See Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1937).

1.
The World before WWII
The United States
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No battles were fought on American
soil during WWI. The U.S. emerged in
better shape than its allies.
Americans wanted to return to a life of
isolationism. It seemed like a safe and
reasonable reaction to the rise of
dictatorships in Europe.
In Oct. of 1929, the stock market
crashed, sparking the Great Depression
of the 1930s.
In 1932 President Franklin Roosevelt
was elected. He promoted the
philosophy of internationalism, which
encouraged trade with foreign nations.
FDR’s administration would aid the
stricken economy, but the Depression
did not end until World War II had
started.
The Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1937
banned the sale of military equipment
to foreign nations and required that
nonmilitary equipment be paid for on a
“cash and carry” basis. After Japan
invaded China in 1937, FDR approved
the sale of military hardware to the
Chinese.
Great Britain
• WWI cost Great Britain
its position as a leading
economic power. Many
of its overseas markets
had been captured
during the war.
• Countries like Canada
and Australia became
independent.
• In 1931 the
Commonwealth of
Nations was
established.
France
• WWI Wreaked enormous
damage on France’s people
and land.
• France’s factories, railways,
and canals could not be
quickly rebuilt.
• France’s government was
generally unstable.
• France built a series of
fortifications called the
Maginot Line along Frances
border with Germany, but
they failed to protect their
border with Belgium.
The Soviet Union
• Joseph Stalin took control of
the Soviet Union after
Lenin's death in 1924.
• From the mid-1920s to until
his death in 1953, Stalin
established one of history’s
most brutal dictatorships.
• Stalin attacked all potential
political enemies. He had
millions of Communist party
members expelled from the
party, put in labor camps, or
shot.
• In 1927, Stalin enacted a
massive plan of crash
industrialization, which
modernized the Soviet Union
over the next decade, but led
to the deaths of millions by
starvation.
Italy
• In Italy after WWI, returning vets
found no work, workers went on
strike, and peasants seized land.
Communists and anarchists
attempted to topple the
government.
• These chaotic conditions
favored the rise of Benito
Mussolini and his Fascist party,
the first major postwar
dictatorship.
• Fascists advocated the
glorification of the state, a single
party system with a strong ruler.
• Mussolini put an end to
democracy. He was supported
by a fanatical private army,
called the Blackshirts.
Germany
• In the midst of the Great Depression
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler becomes the
leader of Germany.
• Hitler’s goal was the creation of a
totalitarian state, which would include
all Germanic peoples.
• The Nazi ideology was aggressively
anti-Communist and anti-Jewish.
• Hitler's opponents were killed or sent
to concentration camps. Even some of
his supporters were wiped out. From
June 30 to July 2, 1934, Hitler
executed hundreds of members of his
own police force, the SA. This was
called the Night of the Long Knives.
• Hitler took the title of der Fuhrer and
called his government the Third
Reich.
• Ignoring the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler
set about restoring Germany’s military
might.
Japan
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By 1931, the Japanese
government had become
unstable. In need of additional
territories and natural resources,
the Japanese military invaded
Manchuria.
Emperor Hirohito was technically
the head of the government, but
all real power was held by a
group of military officers, led by
General Hideki Tojo.
With no opposition at home,
Japan’s military looked forward
to conquering Asia.
Dreams of empire, coupled with
the dreams of German and Italian
rulers, brought the world to war.
1.
Hitler Makes His Move
• In March 1936, Hitler
seized the Rhineland
(Alsace-Lorraine), in
eastern France. Fearing
war, France and Britain
did nothing.
• In Oct. 1936, Germany,
Italy and Japan form an
alliance called the Axis.
• The West refused to
unite and oppose the
Axis.
• In 1938, Hitler annexed
Austria, uniting it with
Germany (German:
Anschluss). Western
democracies did
nothing.
Cartoon : "Path of Appeasement"
• This cartoon suggests
the dangers of
appeasement.
• Americans were afraid
they would be drawn into
another world war and
had to contend with the
Depression at home.
• Several neutrality acts
were passed in the mid30's (See Neutrality Acts
of 1935 and 1937).
“Appeasement"
• Hitler demanded that Germany
have the Sudetenland, a largely
German-speaking area of western
Czechoslovakia. The Czechs
strongly opposed the move.
• British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain and the French and
Italian leaders met with Hitler in
Munich, Germany.
• In return for the Sudetenland,
Hitler promised to respect
Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty.
• Eager to avoid war, Chamberlain
appeased Hitler and accepted the
Munich Agreement.
• Waving the agreement
upon his return to
England in September
1938, Chamberlain said
that “peace in our
time” had been
achieved.
• Hitler invaded
Czechoslovakia in
March, 1939.
"You were given the choice between war and dishonor.
You chose dishonor and you will have war."
• Winston Churchill,
member of the British
Parliament and former
First Lord of the
Admiralty, attacked
Chamberlain's "politics
of appeasement" in many
speeches.
• Churchill made this
prophetic
pronouncement in his
House of Commons
speech in 1938, just after
prime minister Neville
Chamberlain signed the
Munich agreement with
Hitler.
3.
The War Begins
• In March, 1939, right after
attacking Czechoslovakia,
Hitler threatened Poland. He
demanded that Danzig, a port
on the Baltic coast that had
been part of Germany, be
returned. Britain and France
promised to help Poland.
• Stalin and Hitler sign a non
aggression pact in August,
allowing them to fight other
enemies and not one another.
• Convinced that the West
would do nothing, Germany
and Russia invaded Poland
on Sept. 1, 1939.
• Great Britain and France,
abiding by a secret treaty with
Poland, declared war on
Germany on Sept. 3,
beginning WWII.
4.
Blitzkrieg
• The German army invaded Poland in
September of 1939, and defeated them by
October 5.
• The German tactic was called a Blitzkrieg
(lightning war), in which bomber aircraft and
light artillery supported the rapid advance of
tanks and infantry.
• Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark on April
9, 1940. Both were defeated within a month.
Dunkirk
• After WWI, France had built a
series of forts and walls along
the German border, called the
Maginot Line.
• In order to get around the
Maginot Line, Germany
invaded the Netherlands,
Belgium and Luxembourg.
• May 10, 1940, Britain and
France move troops into
Belgium.
• The Germans push the Allies
westward to the ocean at the
French port of Dunkirk.
338,000 French and British
troops had to be evacuated by
boat the night of June 3-4.
France Surrenders
• The Germans swept into
France, and on June 14th
entered Paris. On June
22nd, the French
government
surrendered.
• The Germans now
occupied all of northern
France and set up a
puppet government
under Marshal Petain in
southern France, in the
city of Vichy.
Battle of Britain
• Hitler’s next goal was to invade Great
Britain.
• On June 4, 1940, new British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill gave a
radio speech that defied Hitler and
raised British spirits.
• The Germans began bombing Britain
in Aug. 1940. The German air force (the
Luftwaffe) severely outnumbered the
Royal Air Force (RAF), but with the
help of new radar technology, British
pilots successfully defended their
country.
• In what was called the Blitz, London
was decimated by German round-theclock bombing.
• In retaliation, British planes began
bombing the German capital, Berlin.
Shoah
• The Nazis persecuted political opponents, the physically or
mentally disabled, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Slavic peoples.
Their most thorough and horrifying persecutions were
reserved for the Jews.
• The Nuremberg Laws, enacted in September 1935, stripped
German Jews of their citizenship. They were banned from
marrying non-Jews. Over half of all German Jews were
jobless by 1936.
• One of the first and largest concentration camps,
Buchenwald, was built near the city of Weimar in 1937.
• On Nov. 9-10, 1938, Nazis attacked Jews and Jewish property
all over Germany in what was known as the Night of Broken
Glass (Kristallnacht).
• Between 1933 and the beginning of the war in 1939, 350,000
Jews fled Germany, Austria and Poland. Many emigrated to
the United States. Millions more were unable to escape. The
U.S. refused to raise immigration quotas to accommodate
European refugees.
At the Wannsee Conference on Jan. 20, 1942, Nazi leaders
agreed on the “final solution,” in which Jews and other
“undesirables” would be forcibly relocated to concentration
camps. Those who were healthy were used as slave labor.
The old, the sick, and children were taken to extermination
camps to be gassed to death. 1.6 million people were killed at
the camp at Auschwitz, Poland alone.
More than six million Jews, and twelve million people
in total, were exterminated by the Nazis. Allied leaders
knew about the mass killings as early as 1942, but did
not tell the public until the camps were liberated in
March, 1945.
5.
Public opinion in the United States started to shift after
France’s surrender and the Battle of Britain. FDR
pledged to remain neutral, but provide assistance to the
Allies. He defeated Wendell Willkie and won reelection
for an unheard-of third term in 1940.
Some Americans still opposed U.S. involvement,
notably the America First Committee, chaired by
Charles Lindbergh.
December 7th, 1941.
A day that will live in
infamy.
The U.S. is Attacked
• Japan, allied with Germany
and Italy, attacked the U.S.
Naval base of Pearl Harbor
in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941.
• This was mostly due to the
strong reactions of the
U.S. to Japanese
expansion and aggression
in Asia and the Pacific.
• The Japanese attack
destroyed 8 battleships,
damaged 13 other ships,
destroyed 188 planes, and
killed 2,403 Americans.
Three aircraft carriers
outside the harbor were
safe.
At the same time, The
Japanese launched
attacks on British and
Dutch territories in the
Pacific and southeast
Asia, and on the U.S.controlled Philippines.
FDR signing war declaration.
• The U. S. declared
war on Japan on
Dec. 8. As a result,
Japan's allies
Germany and Italy
declared war on the
U.S. on Dec. 11.
6.
North Africa
• Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, wanted the
Americans to open up a western front against the Germans
and take some pressure off of Russia.
• Prime Minister Churchill advised caution, invading through
German-occupied North Africa.
• General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was in overall command
of the operation. After a serious defeat in their first
engagement at Kasserine Pass, field command of U.S. forces
was given to General George Patton.
• Combined American and British forces pushed the German
army back to the Tunisian coast and on May 13, 1943, the
German Afrika Korps surrendered.
Meanwhile…
• …In the Atlantic: German U-boats had
begun attacking American cargo ships
bound for Britain and Russia. The U.S. Navy
enacted a convoy system in which armed
escort ships protected a large group of cargo
vessels from submarine raids. American
shipbuilders turned out replacement craft
faster than the Germans could sink them.
• …In Russia: The Germans invaded western
Russia, attempting to cripple the Soviet
economy. At Stalingrad, a city that protected
Russia’s vital southern oil fields, the
Germans were halted. In the most brutal
urban battle in history, the entire German
Army of the East was surrounded. It
surrendered on February 2, 1943. From this
point on, Germany was on the defensive.
Ike (Eisenhower) Prepares for D-Day
• “Operation
Overlord” was a
cross-channel
invasion of Germanoccupied France by
the Allies.
• The French coast at
Normandy was
pinpointed for the
amphibious assault.
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1.
2.
3.
Operation Overlord depended
on three conditions:
Preparation: 175,000 men and
their equipment, plus planes
and ships to carry them all,
had to be collected and
organized.
Secrecy: The Allies had the
advantage of surprise as long
as the Germans didn’t know
where they would land. Allied
counter-intelligence led the
Germans to expect the attach
at Pas de Calais.
Clear weather: The English
Channel is one of the most
treacherous seas in the world.
Storms can spring up any time
of year, and fog banks can
thwart navigation. Timing was
critical.
Troops Landing at Normandy
• D-Day: June 6, 1944. Allied
troops stormed the beach at
Normandy.
• Within 24 hours, 120,000 troops
were landed at 5 different
beachheads (Utah, Omaha,
Gold, Juno, Sword).
• Casualties were heavy even
though the Germans were
surprised. The Germans had
built massive defenses with
machine guns, artillery,
landmines and underwater
barbed wire.
• Allied forces captured the
beaches and coordinated with
paratroop units behind German
lines to establish a permanent
foothold in France.
The Road to Berlin
• The Allies fought through Germany’s
defense lines at Normandy.
• Allied leaders had promised to
punish the Nazis for having caused
the war. They would not stop until
the Nazi regime was destroyed.
• German resistance and bad weather
slowed the Allies’ advance into
France.
• German defensive lines, called
Hedgerows, proved to be a serious
obstacle for Allied troops and tanks.
The problem was eventually solved
by aerial bombing.
• General Patton led a brilliant assault
across France, helping to liberate
Paris on August 25, 1944.
The Battle of the Bulge
• In a last-ditch attempt to stave off
an Allied invasion of Germany,
Hitler mounted an offensive in
December 1944. The goal was to
force back Allied lines and cut
them off from the port of
Antwerp, Belgium.
• As American and British forces
fell back, their lines “bulged”
around the German advance,
giving the campaign its name.
• By January 8, 1945, the German
advance had been halted.
Nothing stood between the Allies
and the German border.
The End of the Third Reich
• American and British forces
crossed the Ludendorff Bridge
into Germany on March 7, 1945.
• Russian troops were already
besieging Berlin from the east.
• Facing hopeless odds and
mounting insanity, Adolf Hitler
committed suicide with his wife
on April 30, 1945.
• Hitler’s successor, Grand
Admiral Karl Doenitz, attempted
to surrender to the Americans
and British without surrendering
to the Russians as well.
V-E Day(Victory in Europe) in London
• By early 1945 Germany
was under attack on all
sides.
• Allied bombers
pounded Germany all
day and night.
• Russian troops had
invaded Berlin.
• Germany signed an
unconditional
surrender on May 7,
1945. The next day was
declared V-E Day as an
international
celebration.
6.
• Immediately after the attack on Pearl
Harbor, which crippled the U.S.
Pacific Fleet, Japan invaded the
Philippine Islands.
• The Philippines were defended by
American and Filipino troops under
the command of General Douglas
MacArthur, who drew his forces back
to the Bataan Peninsula.
• President Roosevelt ordered
MacArthur to evacuate to Australia.
As he left by boat, he promised his
troops, “I shall return.”
• The remaining defenders, mostly
Filipinos and U.S. Marines, were
forced to surrender to the Japanese.
They were marched through jungle
and mountains to a prison camp.
Thousands died on the way, and
thousands more died of neglect and
abuse in the camp.
• This became known as the Bataan
Death March, and it instilled a desire
for revenge in the American public.
The Philippines
Japanese Control by 1942
• By 1942, Japan controlled
much of China, Korea,
eastern and southern Asia,
and a string of Pacific islands.
• They had taken the
Philippines from the United
States, as well as Guam and
Wake Island.
• Britain had lost Hong Kong,
New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands, Burma and
Singapore. Ceylon, India and
Australia were under attack.
• The Dutch were driven out of
Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Bali
and Timor.
• French Indochina, including
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos,
was overrun.
• Thailand surrendered after
the first day of Japanese
invasion and allied itself with
the Japanese for the rest of
the war.
The brutal treatment
of POWs by the
Japanese in the
Philippines and
Malaya enraged the
American public.
Propaganda and
recruitment posters
depicted the
Japanese as
bloodthirsty subhumans. Thousands
of American boys
volunteered for the
Army, Navy and
Marines.
Doolittle's Payback
• Japan was too far from any
American base for
conventional bombing.
• In early 1942, the U.S. Navy
acquired a number of B-25
Mitchell long-range
bombers. Lt. Col. James
(Jimmy) Doolittle was put in
charge of figuring out how to
launch them from aircraft
carriers.
• On April 18, 1942, a flight of
B-25s took off from a
specially modified carrier
and successfully bombed
Tokyo. They had to crash
land in China. This was the
Doolittle Raid.
The Doolittle Raid
The Battle of
Midway
• Two major battles halted the
Japanese offense.
1. The Battle of the Coral Sea,
May 4-7, 1942. It halted the
Japanese push on Australia.
The Japanese Navy lost two
aircraft carriers.
2. The Battle of Midway, June 47, 1942. This engagement
stopped the Japanese
advance on Hawaii.
•
These were naval and carrierbased aircraft battles
Jungle Fighting
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War in the Pacific was
different from the war
in Europe.
Fighting took place in
jungle terrain.
The American
offensive involved
amphibious landings of
marines on several
small islands.
Naval supremacy,
rather than air, was the
key to victory.
Island Hopping
• The U.S. went on the offensive,
using a strategy called “Island
Hopping.”
• This consisted of bypassing
heavily fortified islands, setting
up airfields and then bombing the
enemy bases they had passed.
• The Japanese were also cut off
from supplies.
• The plan involved taking the
Gilbert Islands (including Tarawa)
to get to the Marshall Islands
(including Kwajalein), and
eventually the Marianas
(including Guam). From the
Marianas, American planes could
bomb Japan.
• Admiral Nimitz was in charge of
the Island Hopping campaign,
while General MacArthur led an
Army mission to retake New
Guinea and the Philippines.
Big Mac Attack
• MacArthur was the
commander of Army forces in
the Pacific. He promised, “I
shall return,” when Japanese
forces overran the
Philippines in May of 1942,
and he evacuated.
• MacArthur’s force
contributed to the Allied
victory at Guadalcanal, then
bypassed the Japanese base
at Rabaul in order to retake
New Guinea.
• MacArthur re-took the
Philippines with 600 ships
and 250,000 men by March 3,
1945. The Battle of Manila left
the capital in ruins and killed
over 100,000 Filipino
civilians.
7.
Beginning of the End
Battle of Leyte Gulf
• As part of the Allied invasion
plan for the Philippines, the
U.S. massed a huge fleet in
Leyte Gulf. In an attempt to
halt the invasion, Japan
brought together all of its
remaining ships for a
showdown.
• From Oct. 23-26, 1944, the
Japanese lost all four of their
remaining aircraft carriers and
most of its other warships.
Those ships that survived never
left port again. The Allies lost
one carrier in return.
• Leyte Gulf marked the first use
by the Japanese of the
“Kamikaze.”
Kamikazes
• Kamikazes (“Divine Wind” in Japanese) were young
men who volunteered to fly fighter planes packed full
of explosives and crash them into American warships.
• While kamikaze attacks sank or damaged a number of
American vessels, their greatest damage was
psychological. They displayed the desperation of the
Japanese Imperial Command, and the pilots’
disregard for death.
Iwo Jima
• The Island Hopping
strategy called for Iwo
Jima to be captured next,
to provide air fields for
round-the-clock bombing
of Tokyo.
• A desperate 31-day (Feb.
19 to March 26) battle was
carried out on the tiny
island. It was captured at
the cost of 6,812 U.S.
deaths. 21,844 Japanese
troops were killed; only
216 were captured.
Okinawa
• Okinawa was next. As one of
the Japanese Home Islands,
it was heavily defended.
• Fighting lasted 3 months
(April 1 to June 22, 1945) and
cost 12,513 Americans killed,
38,916 wounded and 33,096
noncombatant losses.
Roughly 95,000 Japanese
soldiers were killed, another
10,000 captured. Between
42,000 and 150,000 Okinawan
civilians died, many of them
committing suicide rather
than be captured.
• The American navy sustained
heavy damage from
thousands of “kamikazes.”
• The next move was to be an
all-out invasion of Japan, and
Japan showed no willingness
to surrender.
8.
Truman
• President Truman, who
had replaced Roosevelt
upon his death on April
12, 1945, was told that
an invasion of Japan
might result in as many
as one million American
casualties, and perhaps
ten million Japanese.
• Conventional and
napalm bombing had
not been enough to
make Japan surrender.
The Bomb
• The Manhattan Project had
produced a weapon of
untold destructive power.
The first test of the atomic
bomb was on July 16, 1945
at Alamogordo, New
Mexico.
• Truman decided to use the
newly-developed atomic
bomb on Japan if
necessary.
• He wanted to end the war
and save American (and
Japanese) lives.
• Truman issued a
declaration to Japan, that it
faced “prompt and utter
destruction” unless it
surrendered. The Japanese
government did not
respond…
The End
• On August 6, 1945, the American
B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped
one atomic bomb on the militarybase city of Hiroshima.
• 70,000 were killed instantly,
another 100,000 were wounded or
missing.
• Still Japan did not surrender.
• On August 9, a second atomic
bomb was dropped on Nagasaki,
killing between 35,000 and 74,000.
That same day, the Soviet Union
declared war on Japan.
• Japan surrendered on August 15,
1945. V-J Day.
Executive Order 9066
• Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066
authorized the military to designate
military areas and to exclude any or
all persons from them.
• Suspected of sabotage or spying,
some 120,000 American Japanese
were removed from their homes in
the western states and placed in
internment camps for the duration
of the war.
• In the case of Korematsu v. the
United States, the Supreme Court
agreed that internment was
constitutional because it was based
on military urgency. The decision
was not overturned until 1983.
• In order to prove their loyalty, many
Japanese Americans volunteered to
serve in the U.S. Army. They were
not allowed to fight in the Pacific,
but in Europe they were formed into
the 442nd Regimental Combat Team,
the most highly decorated unit in
the war.