Transcript War in the Pacific

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Many young men enlist in the war
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5 mil volunteers (not enough for 2 fronts)
Selective Service adds another 10 mil
George Marshall (Army Chief of Staff) calls for
the formation of a Women’s Auxiliary Army
Corps
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Noncombat positions
 Nurses, ambulance drivers, radio operators,
electricians, pilots, etc.
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Was it their war to fight?
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Segregated communities and limited human rights
300K Mexicans, 1 Mil Blacks, 46K Asians, 25K
Native Americans
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Served in segregated units and rarely saw combat
until the year of 1943
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All automobile production shut down
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Factories converted to produce tanks, planes, boats,
and command cars
Leads way for other factories to do the same
 Bomb parts, ammunition, weapons, ships, etc.
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Women begin to fill jobs of the men in factories
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Women did not earn same pay as men
Minorities hired to do meaningless jobs
Philip Randolph protests this discrimination
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Accepted offering from FDR that they would not
march on Washington in exchange for equality
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Office of Scientific Research and Development
Improvements in radar/sonar
 Use of pesticides to help with insects
 Drugs that could help wounded in battle
 Secret development of the Atomic Bomb
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The Manhattan Project
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Code name for the research and work on the atomic
bomb
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More war time products = less of other
products
Office of Price Administration
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Fought inflation by freezing prices on goods
Congress raises income tax rates and extended
it to people who have not had to pay before
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Left people with less to spend = price stays lower
Encourages people to buy war bonds
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War Production Board
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Which companies would convert from peacetime to
wartime production?
Organized nationwide drives to collect scrap iron,
tine cans, paper, rags, and cooking fat
OPA sets up system of rationing
Fixed allotments of goods deemed essential for the
military (meat, shoes, sugar, coffee, gas, etc.)
 U.S. people looked at rationing as a personal
contribution to the war
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FDR and Churchill meet and form alliance
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Met at White House to discuss military plans
Strike Hitler and Europe first then move to Pacific
Hitler establishes submarine warfare on U.S.’s
East coast to prevent supplies reaching Britain
and USSR
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Allies begin using the convoy system
Accompanied by ships with radar and sonar
Destroyed U-boats faster than they could be made
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Battle of Stalingrad
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Hitler wanted to capture oil fields and Stalingrad
(major industrial center)
German air force led the attack
 Stalin refused to let these people surrender the city
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Germany able to capture 9/10ths of the city
 Another winter sets in
 Soviet’s launch a counter attack and are successful
 Hitler refuses to have troops retreat
 Commander and troops surrender Jan. 31, 1943
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1.1 Mil USSR soldiers killed (more than U.S. all war)
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Stalin pressures U.S. and Britain to begin a
second front in Western Europe
Launch Operation Torch led by Dwight D.
Eisenhower in North Africa against Gen. Erwin
Rommel (“Desert Fox”)
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Very successful and caused the surrender in May
1943
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Leaders meet in Africa before that war was
won
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Churchill feels its best to attack Italy before
heading into Germany
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Decided they would only accept an unconditional
surrender (whatever terms laid out)
Captured Sicily in summer of 1943 (very easy)
Italian gov’t forced Mussolini to resign = end of war
against Italy
Hitler decides to fight on Italian soil
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“Bloody Anzio” -> four months (25k allies, 30k axis)
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The Tuskegee Airmen
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92nd Division “Buffaloes”
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All black pilot squadron
Won 2 “Distinguished Unit Citations” (highest for a
unit) for its fighting against the German air force
All black division that won many awards for their
fighting
Japanese unit the all-Nisei 442nd Regimental
Combat team becomes the most decorated unit
in U.S. History (known as the Purple Heart
Battalion)
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Allies begin working on a plan to free France and
Western Europe from Nazi control
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Operation Overlord -> led by Eisenhower
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
Force of 3 million British, American, and Canadian troops
 Plan to attack Normandy in Northern France
 Sent air born rangers behind enemy lines and followed it
the next morning with the largest land-sea-air operation
in history
 German defense was brutal
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 Omaha beach becomes most infamous for the death of
soldiers
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After 7 days the Allies gain an 80 mile strip of land
in France
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Immediately landed extra troops and supplies
Gen. Omar Bradley launches air and land attack at
St. Lo and provides a hole in the German defense
General George Patton is next to advance
Reach the Seine River south of Paris with his Third Army
 2 Days later with help from French resisters they are able
to liberate the capital
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By Sep. 1944 Allies freed France, Belgium, and
Luxembourg
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FDR elected to 4th Term
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Oct. 1944 American capture their first German
town
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Hitler responds with one last effort and offensive
Orders his troops to break through Allie defense and
recapture the Belgian port of Antwerp
Dec. 16, 1944 Germans attack behind force of
tanks and break through the Allie lines
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Create a “bulge” in the Allied defense
Fight lasted a month and Germans got no where
 They lost 120k troops, 600 tanks/guns, 1,600 planes
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Allies push east into the German heartland and
Soviet’s push into Poland and Berlin
Soviets able to liberate Majdanek in Poland as the
other troops in Germany were able to do the same
 German soldiers try to hide all of the evidence but
not able to do so
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Soviets storm Berlin in April of 1945
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Any German soldier who fled was killed on the spot
Hitler prepares himself for the end in his underground
bunker in Berlin
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Marries his companion and writes his last address to the
German people
 Blamed the Jews for starting the war and his generals for losing
it
 Hitler shoots himself and has his body burned
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Eisenhower accepts surrender of Third Reich on May 8, 1945
(V-E Day)
FDR does not see the end of the war – dies from stroke
on April 12, 1945
Harry Truman becomes new president
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Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor missed the Pacific
Fleet’s submarines and aircraft carriers
Japan had conquered more territory than Hitler’s
Third Reich
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Doolittle’s Raid
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Pearl Harbor like bombing of Tokyo
Battle of Coral Sea
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Douglas McArthur commander in Philippines
5 day battle stopping Japanese from making it to
Australia
Battle of Midway
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Island located North-west of Hawaii
Sank Japanese aircraft carriers with planes still on board
Became strategic location for Allied forces
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Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands) = 1st Allied
offensive attack
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Became known as “Island of Death”
Japan’s first defeat on land
Japanese Defense
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Used entire fleet
Began using kamikaze pilots
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Iwo Jima
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Could be a base for bombers to reach Japan
Most heavily defended spot
 20,700 Japanese troops in trenches and caves
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More than 6k marines die, only 200 Japanese survive
Okinawa (Final Assault)
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Plagued with almost 2k kamikaze attacks
 30 ships and 5k deaths
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Knew invasion of Japan would be a struggle
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Very loyal soldiers
The Manhattan Project
Led by J. Robert Oppenheimer
 Development of the Atomic bomb
 Best kept secret (600k + working on it)
 1st test in New Mexico
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 Flash could be seen 180 miles away
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Truman decides to use the bomb
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2 bombs = Little Boy (Hiroshima) and Fat Man
(Nagasaki)
 3 days a part
 Destroyed everything
 Killed 200k people + leveled cities
 Forced Japan to surrender because of fear
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Yalta Conference
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Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt
Discussed fate of Germany
Stalin wanted harsh punishment, Churchill did not
FDR favors Stalin
 Hoped for help in the Pacific and for United Nations
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Result
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Germany split into 4 (U.S., USSR, France, Britain)
Stalin agrees to free-elections in Soviet occupied
territories, joined the war in the Pacific, and agrees to
help create United Nations
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Nuremburg Trials
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Discovery of Hitler’s death camps
Allies have trial for 24 Nazi leaders
 12 sentenced to death
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Occupation of Japan
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Under General McArthur
Arrested Hideki Tojo to prison guards
 7 sentenced to death
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McArthur reshapes Japan
 Free-market practices, Constitution, women’s suffrage
and basic freedoms, etc.
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WWII = time of opportunity for millions of
Americans
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At the end of WWII the U.S. emerges as economic and
military power
Unemployment fell to 1.2%
Average weekly pay raised 10%
Crop production increases by 50%
6 mil + women enter workforce for the first time
Mass migrations begin to happen (African
Americans)
GI Bill of Rights -> provided education and
training for veterans paid for by the federal gov’t
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African Americans begin leaving the South to find
work
Still faced discrimination
 Cities already overcrowded
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Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Founded by James Farmer
 Confronted urban segregation in the north
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Mexican-Americans experience prejudice as well
1943 “zoot-suit” riots (style of dress adopted by MexicanAmericans)
 Reports from sailors saying they were attacked by “zootsuits”
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When WWII began 120k Japanese Americans lived in the
U.S. (mostly West Coast)
After Pearl Harbor people are fearful of Japanese
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Rumors that Japanese were mining coastal harbors and poisoning
vegetables
Started with evacuation of all Japanese out of Hawaii
Refused because it would hurt the economy in Hawaii (37% of
population)
 Forced internment of 1,444
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Yellow journalism raises fears even further
Feb 19,1942 -> President Roosevelt signs order requiring the
removal of people of Japanese ancestry from California and
parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona
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110K + Japanese Americans rounded up and placed into prison
camps
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2/3 of the Japanese were Nisei (born in this country from immigrants)
No formal chargers ever filed and no evidence of any harmful acts
were recorded
Korematsu v. U.S. -> gov’s policy of evacuating Japanese Americans
to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity”
Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
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Pushed gov’t to compensate those sent to the camps for their lost property after
the war ($38 mil -> less than 1/10 of actual loss)
Decades later Congress passes bill that would give $20k to every
Japanese American sent to a camp
Checks not sent until 1990 under President George Bush
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“We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand
for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans
during WWII.”