Transcript File

WORLD WAR II
AMERICA’S EARLY BATTLES
Setbacks in the Pacific
• Allied outposts fall to Japan early
• Guan, Wake Is., Gilbert Is., Hong Kong, Singapore, Java,
Rangoon, Burma (Burma Rd.)
• Philippines
• US outmanned, outgunned
• Dec. ‘41 – May ’42
• MacArthur
• “Victory Disease”
Coral Sea & Midway
• May 7 – 8, ’42 = Stop Japanese advance on Australia
• June 4, ’42
• Desire major defeat of US Navy  negotiation
• Adm. Yamamoto v. Adm. Nimitz
• Broken code = surprise attack
• Planes + carriers vs. Planes on carriers
• BOOM!
• Significance?
Atlantic Setbacks
• German “wolf packs” in N. Atlantic
• ‘42- U-boats off US coastline
• 400 ships/tankers damaged/sunk
• Solution? Escort vessels, boats/planes (civilian)
MOBILIZATION AT HOME
Getting Started
• War effort = increased production, full employment
• 60k planes, 45k tanks, 8 m. tons
• Preparedness in ‘41 v. ’17
• Army @ 1.4 m.
• Draft = 18-45
• 15 m. serve
Transforming the Economy
• Mobilization began w/ lend-lease, defense efforts
• ‘42- War Production Board
• Manufacturing  war production
• Allotment of materials/facilities for defense
• Office of Scientific Research and Development
• Radar, sonar, bazooka, DDT, penicillin, Manhattan Project
• Gov. capital into economy  centralization,
consolidation of private industry
• ‘42- 300k businesses close
Manufacturing  War Production
• Autos  planes, tanks, ships, command cars
• Mechanical pencils  bomb parts
• Bedspreads  mosquito netting
• Soft-drinks  filling shells with explosives
Financing the War
• FDR- taxes; Congress- borrow
• 45% tax, remaining from bonds ($150 b)
• War-bond drives
• Nat’l debt increased
• $260 b.
• Issues? Effects?
• Filling jobs!
• Marginal workers
• Labor Unions grow
Economic Controls
• War prosperity
• Farmers recover  higher prices  workers demand higher
wages
• Gov. authority to control wages/prices
• Nat’lization of coal mines, RRs- ‘43
• Encourage US to CONSERVE
• “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
• Victory gardens, rubber collection
• 1941- Office of Price Administration
• Price ceilings
• Rationing (tires, sugar, coffee, meat, gasoline)
Conservatism in the US
• Discontent over price controls, labor shortages,
rationing
•  reaction vs. FDR liberalism @ polls = growing conservatism
• ‘42- swing against New Deal, Repubs gain, Dem lose outside S
• “Nonessential” New Deal Agencies abolished
• WPA, NYA, CCC, Farm Security Admin., Nat’l Resources
Planning Board
• Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act
• Seizure of plants useful to war
• ’43- laws to restrict strikes, union activities
• ‘44- FL “right-to-work” legislation
1944 Election
• FDR v. NY gov. Thomas Dewey
• Dem challenge over VP
• Henry Wallace lost southern, northern “city boss” support
• Ties to organized labor
• FDR turn to MO senator Harry S. Truman
• Dewey
• No dismantling of FDR programs, BUT time for YOUNGER men to
replace old New Dealers
• Younger? Stiff, formal, arrogant, dull
• FDR back!
• EC: 432-99
• Pop: 25.6 m – 22 m.
SOCIAL EFFECTS OF WWII
Development of the West
• Population BOOM
• 8 m. west of MSR (’40 – ’50)
• Phoenix, Albuquerque, Seattle, LA, San Diego, San Fran
• Defense production, men into armed forces
• CA, TX
• City issues?
• Housing, minority ratio
Women
• Demand removes prejudice
• Industry, military
• 200k  Women’s Army Corps, Navy, Women
Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services
(WAVES)
• Marines, Coast Guard, Army Air Force
• 6 m. into workforce
• Toolmakers, machinists, riveters, lumberjacks, RRs
• “Do you part, free a man for service,”
• Rosie the Riveter
• Male Reaction?
African-Americans
• Demand full civil rights
• Military, defense industries
• 1 m. serve in military most segregated
• ‘40- integration (officer candidate schools)
• Exception? Air Force
• A. Philip Randolph- march on Washington
• End of racial discrimination
• Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
• NAACP up
• Smith v. Allwright- ‘44
• All white Dem. Primary = unconstitutional (15th Amend)
Hispanics
• Prior to WWI- force Mexican laborers back to Mexico
• Labor shortage  recruiting workers
• Mexico- must have min. work/living conditions
•  bracero program- ’42
• Mexico provides seasonal farm work (undraftable), US provides
transportation  200k farm workers into US
• Tension in LA
• Anti-Hispanic incidents
• Servicemen vs. gang members & teenagers
•  Zoot Suit Riots
• ’43- off-duty soldiers/sailors + white civilianss assault zoot
suiters, blacks, Filipinos
Native Americans
• 1/3 (25k) serve in armed forces
• Defense industry, nurses, WAVES
• Out of reservations  new vocational skills,
awareness of opportunities
• Why fight?
• No choice/end of New Deal
• Nazi/Japanese = threat to homeland
• patriotism
• Integrated w/in white units
• Serve as “code talkers”
• Used to encode & decipher messages
• Navajo, Chippewas, Foxes, Comanches
Japanese Internment
• Fear that Japanese would attack the U.S. mainland.
• Fear and prejudice across the U.S., especially on the West coast.
• Feb. ‘42- FDR order removal of people of Japanese
ancestry from CA and parts of Washington, Oregon, and
AZ (Exec. Order 9066)
• Nat’l security.
• 110,000 Japanese Americans sent to internment camps
(relocation centers/prison camps).
• 2/3 of those sent were Nisei (born in U.S. to parents who emigrated
from Japan).
• Many had already joined Army and fought in WWII.
• Families forced to sell homes, belongings, businesses for very little $
• 1944- Korematsu v. U.S: Supreme Court ruled that
internment was justified on basis of “military
necessity.”
• 1965- Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
created after WWII to help compensate those sent
to camps. Congress spent $38 million to do so (less
than 1/10 of actual losses). Addressed again in 1978,
1988, and 1990.
THE ALLIED DRIVE TOWARD
BERLIN
1942 War Plans
• War plans?
• Germany first, then Japan
• Why?
• Direct threat to W. Hemisphere
• War potential
• German science
• Pearl Harbor  FDR + Churchill war plans
• Alliance- US + GB
• Supreme Allied Commander, allotments of munitions, resources
• Jan .1, ‘42- Declaration of the United Nations
• 26 nations OK Atlantic Charter, full resources, no separate peace
Strategy
• Summer ‘42- disagreement on strategy
• Location?
• Coast of France (‘42-’43) v. hit-and-run raids, air attacks,
buildup of military
• Meanwhile. . .
• Eastern front of Euro. Theater
• Stalin, Hitler- massive death from war, on captives
• Need for relief from Allies  N. Africa campaign
North Africa Campaign
• General Dwight D. Eisenhower
• US + GB forces @ Casablanca, Algeria vs. Germans, Tunisia
• GB push of Rommel into Libya
• Pincers close on Germans, Italians  200k surrender by May,
’43
•  N. Africa controlled by Allies
Conference @ Casablanca
• Jan. ‘43- FDR + Churchill  STRATEGY
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More bombs! Supplies to Allies
Anti-sub campaign in Atlantic
Remove Japanese from Pacific
GB desire- Italy, Sicily
US desire- invasion of France ASAP (fold to GB)
• End of war? Only with “unconditional surrender” of
Axis
• Why?
• Distrust
• Result?
• More resistance
• After war  Soviet control of e. Euro
Battle of the Atlantic
• Early ’43- Allied success vs. Germans
• Convoys, escorts of merchant ships, troopships
• U-boat battle continue, but lost cause
• Impact of radar/sonar, Allied cryptanalysts
Sicily and Italy
• N. Africa in Allied hands  launch of Italian
campaign (July ‘43)
• 250k troops to Sicily
• Under Patton = amphibious attack
• Control by August
•  end of Mussolini/Fascism
• Italian gov. offer to surrender & switch sides
• TOO SLOW
• German reinforcements arrive by Sept.
• Mussolini & puppet fascist gov. in north
• Italian peninsula campaign difficult
• Tuskegee Airmen
• 332nd Fighter (Red Tails), 99th Pursuit, 477nd Bombardment
• "We got the reddest paint we could find and painted our aircraft.
We wanted the bomber crews to know when we were escorting
them and we wanted to make sure the Luftwaffe knew when we
were airborne and in their territory."
-Lt. Col. Herbert Carter of the Tuskegee Airmen
• June 4, ‘44 = Allied capture of Rome
• 2 days later, D-Day
Strategic Bombing of Europe
• During “D-Day waiting” period
• USAF + RAF into “Fortress Europe”
• ‘43- strategic bombings to pound Germany into submission
• Much damage, no success in cutting German production or
breaking morale
• New gas tanks = longer flights for escorts  high
Luftwaffe losses  scale back challenge to Allied
missions
• Allies have air supremacy
•  focus on urban, industrial areas
• Later, cover for Normandy landing
• “If you see fighting aircraft over you, they will be ours.” –D.D.E
Teheran Meeting
• Summer ’43
• Churchill OK invasion of France
• FDR + Churchill + Stalin in Teheran
• Invasion of France & Soviet offensive from east
• SU enter war vs. Japan. . . IF…
• Plans: int’l peacekeeping org. & occupation of post-war
Germany
• Prior to meeting
• 11/’43- Churchill + FDR + Chiang Kai-shek in Egypt
• Declaration of Cairo = territory back to China, free Korea
D-DAY: Operation Overlord
• Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces =
SHAEF in London
• Eisenhower takes command (N. Africa, Mediterranean)
• Assault of Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall”
• Germ prep.- fortifications along coast
• 50-50 chance of success
• June 5
• Ike to 6k paratroopers
chaos, disrupt comm.
• “Now quit worrying, General, we’ll take care of this thing for
you.”
• “Well, it’s on.”
• SURPRISE!
• Invasion at Calais?
• Airborne forces, planes, battleships
• June 6
• Dawn = invasion
• 4k ships, 150k men (57k US)
• Invasion or diversion?
• “the news couldn’t be better. As long as they were in Britain, we
couldn’t get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy
them.” Hitler
• Near failure
• Cloud cover, antiaircraft fire  landing zones missed, ocean
craft @ wrong location, bombs dropped too far inland
• Rough seas  seasickness, capsized sea craft
• 1k men drown, radios ineffective, oral communication bad
(noise)
• Normandy landings
• Omaha, Utah for Americans
• Utah- light opposition
• Omaha- German defense stands + mines + 50 yrds open beach
• Gold, Juno, Sword- GB face counterattack
• 5k dead by nightfall
• Secure beachhead: 60 miles X 5-15 miles deep
• 2 wks- landed 1 m. troops, 556k tons of supplies, 170k vehicles
• German reaction?
• Advice to retreat behind Seine R.
• Hitler REFUSE- order to contest all land
• Rommel knew all was lost- sought separate peace
• Other officers attempt to kill Hitler (7-20-1944), but survives
bomb
• Conspirators/suspects tortured to death
• Rommel chose suicide
• Disaster for German troops in W. France
• Summer ‘44- German resistance collapsed
• Paris liberated by Free French division, aid by US forces
• German retreat to border
• Mid-Sept.: France/Belgium liberated
ISLAND HOPPING TO
TOKYO
US Offensive in the Pacific
• SW Pacific- Japan into S. Solomon Islands
• Airstrip at Guadalcanal to attack transport routes to Australia
• Aug. 7- US lands at Guadalcanal = “Island of Death”
• Navy, marines, night battles, hand-to-hand combat
• Devastation to Japanese carriers
• New Guinea
• MacArthur over US and Australian forces
• Push Japanese out of eastern tip of New Guinea (Jan. ‘43)
• Swamps- hot, humid, mosquito-infested
Offensive Strategy
• Army v. Navy
• MacArthur v. Nimitz
• Move towards Philippines, Tokyo v. sweep through c. Pacific,
Formosa, China
• New tactic- island hopping (“leapfrogging”)
• Success w/ bombers vs. troopships
• US use air + sea power to attack, neutralize strongholds, then
move on and leave to “die on the vine”
• = Allied victory
Nimitz in the Central Pacific
• Attack on Gilbert Islands (airfields)  Marshall Islands
• Japan abandons region
• Battle of Philippine Sea
• Air battle, June 19-20, ‘44
•  control of Marianas Islands (Guam)
• Tojo convinced war lost  resigned July, ‘44
Leyte Gulf
• FDR + MacArthur + Nimitz in Honolulu
• Next plan of attack?
• Airfields in S. China taken by Japanese (‘44)
• MacArthur propose Philippines (strategy & personal desire)
• Oct. 20, ‘44- move into Philippines
• “People of the Philippines: I have returned.”
• Philippines = access to Dutch E. Indies for Japanese
• 3 fleets into Leyte Gulf vs. US
• KAMIKAZE tactics
• Japan loses remaining sea power, defense of Philippines
CONVERGING FRONTS
Allied forces in Europe
• Quick sweep across France  loss of momentum
• Fall-winter ’44- sluggish fighting in frontiers of Germany
• Battle of the Bulge
• 12-16-’44: offensive push by Germans through Ardennes
• Push 50-mile bulge in Allied lines in Belgium, Luxembourg
• Allied lines hold off Germans (6 days) @ Bastogne
• 12-23: weather improved, air power drop supplies, attack on
Germans
• Western offensive- March ‘45- past Rhine
• Nazi resources to west  Soviet eastern offensive
• March- into Germany
The Final Push
• GB/US from west, Soviets from east
• Focus on Berlin
• Suspicion
• First to arrive = leverage on postwar Europe
• Allied plans after fall?
• Occupation zones (Berlin in Soviet zone)
• Ike not concerned about Berlin- focus to destroy ground forces
• Gen. Omar Bradley confirms- 10k lives to take it  leave for Soviets
Bringing An End to War in Europe
• Yalta Conference- 2/’45
• Big Three in s. Russia
• Focus on shape of postwar world
• FDR want Soviets in war vs. Japan
• Allies united in dealing w/ German aggressors
• Remedy mistakes after WWI (LON)
• Free elections, dem. govs, constitutional freedoms
•  conference to create United Nations
• Security Council = US, GB, SU, France, China
Germany & Eastern Europe
• Postwar map @ Yalta
• Occupation zones: E Germany (SU), industrial areas of
west(W. Allies), Berlin (jointly occupied)
• Austria/Vienna also divided
• Reparations
• $20 billions- ½ to SU
• Committee never reaches decision- SU takes machinery,
equipment
• Eastern Europe
• Poland issue
• ‘44- SU place gov. under puppet regime (Lublin)
• Underground uprising in Warsaw
• ?s remain
• Polish gov-in-exile in London
• Boundary lines
Yalta’s Legacy
• Agreements “gave” e. Europe to SU, FDR declining
health
• Reality?
• SU had upper hand in eastern Europe
• Secret Agreement on Far East
• Stalin demands OK to gain SU support in war vs. Japan
• SU control of Outer Mongolia (People’s Republic puppet), territory
lost in Russo-Japanese War (1905)
• Return: recognize Chinese control of Manchuria, treaty/alliance
of friendship w/ Chinese Nat’lists
Death of FDR
• Declining health, illness  Warm Springs, GA
• April 12, ‘45
• Cerebral hemorrhage
WAR COMES TO AN END
Soviets Reach Berlin
• Allied armies advance unopposed to Elbe
• 4/25- reach advance Soviets
• 4/28- Mussolini captured, hung as attempting to flee
• Berlin under siege from SU
• 4/30- Hitler + Eva Braun
• Marriage, death
• May 2- Berlin falls to Soviets, German troops in Italy
surrender to Allies
• May 7- unconditional surrender of Germany (Reims)
• V-E Day on May 8th
Tragedy Follows
• Mourning for FDR, death/mutilation of millions during
war
• Nazi concentration camps
• Response DURING war
• Reports (Red Cross, church/Jewish leaders) & stories
• Relief a long time coming- why?
• Relief effort  refugees  anti-Semitism @ home
• ‘44- War Refugees Board
• 200k Euro. Jews, 20k others
• Lack of response
• NO bombing of Nazi rail lines into Auschwitz (industry affected nearby)
• Few refugees accepted
Concluding the War Against Japan
• Early ‘45- US attacks continue, death toll rises
• 2/19- Iwo Jima
• Provide escorts for bombers over Japan, landing strip for B-29s
• 6 weeks to conquer, 20k casualties (7k dead)
• 4/1- Okinawa
• Staging area for invasion
• 300k troops needed for amphibious invasion
• Japanese can’t overcome death toll by June (140k)
• 42k Okinawans, 50k US casualties
• Defeat @ Okinawa  Hirohito instructs the seeking of
peace terms
• Translation problem!
The Atomic Bomb
• ‘39- Einstein alerted US to German research on
nuclear fission
• ‘40- FDR approves $$, workers to Manhattan Project
• Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer @ Los Alamos, NM
• July 16, ‘45- first test in desert
• “A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were
silent.” -Oppenheimer
• “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the
world.” -Truman
To Use or Not To Use
• Unknown death capability, preferable to an invasion
• Soldiers + civilians would fight like “savages, ruthless,
merciless, and fanatic.”
• 250k Allied casualties, 100k POW deaths
• Truman would always use @ 1st opportunity
• Logical next step after air raids over Japan
• Cities chosen- Hiroshima & Nagasaki
• Port city (400k people), war industries, HQ of Second Gen.
Army, homeland defense center/shipbuilding, torpedfactories
• July 25- Truman give OK to drop bomb
• Aug. 3 deadline for Japanese surrender
• July 26- Request for surrender @ Potsdam
• Or face destruction
• Aug. 4- Enola Gay drops “Little Boy”
• “It’s like bubbling molasses down there. . . The mushroom is
spreading out. . . Fires are springing up everywhere. . . It’s like
a peep into hell.” –tail gunner of the Enola Gay
• Shock wave, firestorms, cyclonic winds, radioactive rain,
burns
• 80k/140k killed, 70k buildings down, 4 sq. mi. of city to rubble
Response after Little Boy
• In US, hope for end to war
• SU enter war
• Still no surrender. . .
• Aug. 9- “Fat Man” dropped
• Hirohito urges surrender
• Aug. 14- Japan accepts surrender
• Emperor will remain under Allied supreme commander
• = V-J Day
• September 2- formal surrender of Japan to
MacArthur on board battleship Missouri
Potsdam Conference
• July – August, ’45
• Truman, Stalin, Churchill/Attlee
• Follow-up to Yalta
• Truman- reparations ONLY from your zone
• 4 zones of occupation
• Disarmament/demilitarization of Germany
• Democratic society
• War trials
• Polish borders shift