Transcript World War 2 At Home and Abroad

World War II: At Home & Abroad
Rise of Aggression in Europe and Asia
• 1930s = Authoritarian governments in
Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland,
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania,
Greece
• 1922 – 1943 = Benito Mussolini, dictator
of Italy
• Nationalist Socialist Party (Nazis) gained
power in Germany in late 1920s
• 1933 = Hitler became Chancellor of
Germany
• Nazis targeted Jews, homosexuals,
communists, & disabled as “inferior
races”
Appeasement
• Practiced by Great
Britain & France
• 1938 = Hitler
demanded Germany’s
right to Sudetenland,
Czechoslovakia
• Britain’s Chamberlain
gave in to
Hitler
Japan
• Interested in
expansion
• 1937 = Declared
war against China
Neutrality Acts, 1935 - 1937
• Outlawed the sale of
weapons & loans to
nations at war
• Forbade Americans
from traveling on
ships of warring
countries
• August 1939 = Hitler & Stalin formed German-Soviet
pact
• Soviet Union & Germany promised not to fight & to
divide Poland after it was invaded by Germany
• Britain & France promised to defend Poland
• September 1, 1939 = Hitler invaded Poland
• September 3, 1939 = Britain & France declared war
on Germany
Cash & Carry Plan, 1939
• Neutrality Acts amended
for U.S. to sell weapons to
countries at war
• Required they pay cash &
carry weapons on their
own ships
• Allowed the U.S. to profit
from the war
Pearl Harbor
• Japan wanted empire to
include China, southeast
Asia, western Pacific
• September 1940 = Japan,
Germany, Italy signed
“Berlin-Rome-Tokyo
Axis” military alliance
• Japan warned attack in
December 1941
• Sunday, December 7,
1941 = Japanese planes
attacked navy base on
Oahu, Hawaii
• 2,400 Americans killed,
1,200 wounded
• December 8, 1941 = U.S.
declared war against
Japan
• 3 days later = Germany &
Italy declared war against
U.S.
The Battlefront in Europe
• Approach of Allies = Attack Germany first,
Japan second
War in the Pacific
• Philippines, Australia,
China, Indonesia,
Thailand, plus
smaller South Pacific
Islands
• General Douglas
MacArthur’s “Island
Hopping”
Jewish Migration?
• By 1939 = 300,000 Jews fled
Germany, 200,000 fled
Austria
• June 1939 = 900 Jewish
refugees arrived on St. Louis
ship in Ft. Lauderdale,
Florida & sent back to
Germany
• 700 of the 900 died in
concentration camps
Victory in Europe
• April 12, 1945 = FDR
died
• April 30, 1945 = Hitler
committed suicide
• May 2, 1945 = Berlin
captured by the Soviet
Union
• May 8, 1945 = Germany
surrendered, “V-E Day”
WWII at Home
Mobilizing for War
• Pearl Harbor, December 1941
= 1.6 million in Army
• War Power Act granted FDR
authority over war
mobilization
• 15 million men, 350,000
women served in military
• Economy, government,
military coordinated
• War Production Board =
distributed defense contracts
• War Manpower Commission =
supervised mobilization of
soldiers
• Office of Price Administration
rationed food
• End of 1942 = 1/3 of economy
devoted to war production
• 300,000 aircraft, 2.6 million
machine guns, 6 million tons of
bombs, 86,000 warships
Defense Spending Ends Great Depression
• U.S. spent $320 billion
total to defeat the Axis
• 17 million new jobs
created
• Brought prosperity to
many American
workers
Rationing
• O.P.A. rationed gas,
coffee, sugar, butter,
cheese, meat
• “Uncle Sam’s
Scrappers” & “Tin Can
Colonels” collected
scrap metal and trash
War Bonds
Propaganda & Politics
• Office of Censorship
suppressed war footage &
casualty numbers
• Office of War Information
hired 4,000 advertisers,
writers, artists to create
unity through
propaganda
Rosie the Riveter
• Federal government urged
women to work in 1942
• Over 6 million women
worked in war production
• 1945 = 1/3 of workforce
were women
• 75% married, 60% over 35,
33% had kids under 14
Hostility Towards Rosie
• Women earned 35% less pay
than men
• Government portrayed their
work as temporary
• “A woman is a substitute like
plastic instead of metal”
• 1945 poll = Only 18% approved
of married women working
Japanese Internment
• Issei: First generation
Japanese Immigrants
(37,000 interned)
• Nisei: U.S.-born Japanese
Americans (75,000
interned)
• FDR’s Executive Order 9006
= February 1942, all
Japanese on West Coast
forcibly removed from
homes
Star Trek’s George Takei Reflecting on Life in an
Internment Camp
• $2 billion lost in property &
belongings
• Supreme Court upheld
constitutionality of internment
policy, Korematsu v. U.S. (1942)
• 1982 = U.S. government
admitted internment “not
based on military necessity” &
$20,000 given to 62,000
survivors in 1988
The Atomic Bombs
• 1939 = Einstein warned
U.S. about German
development of A-bomb
• Manhattan Project
began in 1941 between
U.S. and Britain
• 2 bombs completed in
Los Alamos, NM
• July 16 1945 = test bomb
exploded in Alamogordo,
NM
• U.S. threatened to drop bomb
if Japan did not surrender by
August 3, 1945
• August 6, 1945 = Enola Gay
dropped “Little Boy” over
Hiroshima
• August 8, 1945 = Bock’s Car dropped “Fat
Man” over Nagasaki
• September 6, 1945 = Japan surrendered
• Hiroshima = 60,000
died immediately,
75,000 later from
radiation and burns
• Nagasaki = 30,000 died
immediately