Transcript Chapter 22 *The Ordeal of Reconstruction

Chapter 35 – America in WWII
(1941-1945)
America fights a two front war and deals with
great domestic changes
Questions facing the US at the outset
 Who to fight first?: Germany or Japan
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American public blood thirsty for Pearl Harbor revenge
But FDR resists all-out focus on Japan for a Germany first strategy
 How to retool the nation for war production?
 How to make sure the UK and USSR aren’t crushed fast?
 How to equip the army and its allies all over the world?
 How to beat the intense German war machine?
 What to do about domestic problems?
 Would the American people measure up to the task?
Loyalty and Distrust at Home
 Pearl Harbor unified the nation
 Italian and German-Americans were expressed loyalty
 WWII unlike WWI: immigrant loyalty unquestioned; no
gov’t witch-hunt
 Except the west-coast Japanese-Americans
 Fears they would conduct sabotage > Japanese internment
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Executive Order No. 9066: Japanese herded into concentration camps
 Millions in property and earning losses
 Supreme Court declared it constitutional in Korematsu v
US
Building the War Machine
 WWII and a Repub Congress officially ended the New Deal
era reform
 The war fueled a massive industrial output
 The War Production Board organized factories into weaponmaking operations
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Production of non-essential items were halted (cars)
Conservation of resources (gas rationing
Farmers grow record crop outputs
 Office of Price Administration regulates prices
 National War Labor Board creates wage ceilings, resented by
labor unions
 Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act gave fed gov’t authority to
seize industries plagued by labor
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Gov’t took over coal mines and briefly railroads
Strikes were rare
Manpower and Womanpower
 The army employed 15 million people for non-
combat duties
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WAACs (army), WAVES (navy), SPARs (Coast Guard)
 The draft depleted American workforce
 Bracero program brought Mexican farm workers to
the West
 6 million women enter workforce
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UK and USSR had way more women than US in factories
 Many women returned to traditional roles
 Mothering the baby-boom generation of the post-war
Wartime Migrations and Racial Tensions
 War industries creates growth in cities, regions
 FDR uses war as an opportunity to grow the depressed South
 Defense contracts…beginning of the “Sun Belt”
 Blacks (just like WWI) leave for the North
 Led to racial conflict in the North
 Fair Employment Practices Commission: forbade and monitored
discrimination in defense industries
 Black soldiers: segregated, typically non-combat units
 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE): non-violent advocacy
 Post-war blacks become synonymous with urban North; Detroit race riot
 Natives leave reservations; serve in military
 code talkers transmit messages to confuse the enemy
 Zoot-suit riots: Mexican-American youths attacked by sailors
in LA
Zoot Suit Riots
The Anglo soldiers and sailors
often resented the zoot suiters
whose sense of fashion made
them stand out. While MexicanAmericans were serving in the
military in a higher proportion
than other groups, the soldiers
and sailors often viewed them as
draft-dodgers. In addition, the
zoot suits were made out of wool
which was rationed at the time.
In 1942, the War Production
Board—the government agency
in charge of rationing—had
drawn up regulations on
clothing manufacture. Under
these regulations, the
manufacture of zoot suits was
prohibited. However, there was
still demand for the zoot suits
and bootleg tailors were soon
meeting that demand. The
soldiers and sailors justified
their anti-Mexican racism as an
expression of patriotism and
when they saw MexicanAmerican youth in zoot suits,
they saw people who they viewed
as un-American. They saw the
zoot suits as a way of flouting the
laws of rationing.
Domestic Success
 While the world suffered, the US thrived at home
economically
 Big gov’t effected lives more than ever
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Military, defense industry, rationing, labor policy, housing,
health, science
 Cost = $330 billion…twice as much as ALL federal
spending since 1776
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Highest tax rates at 90%
National debt rose from $50 billion to $250 billion by 1945
The Pacific Theater
 Japan’s quick victories in Guam, Philippines, Hong
Kong, Malaysia, Burma, Dutch East Indies
 Bataan Death March after American surrender in the
Philippines
 Japanese victories end at the Battle of Midway in June
1942
 Americans win next at Guadalcanal Island
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20,000 Japanese losses to 1,700 Americans
 US troops begin island-hopping from one Japanese-held
island to the next towards the goal of Tokyo
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Combo of naval, air, and ground assaults
 Winning the Mariana islands (Guam) allowed US air
forces to drop continuous bombs on Japan mainland
"The hours dragged by and, as we knew they
must. The drop-outs began. It seemed that a
great many of the prisoners reached the end of
their endurance at about the same time. They
went down by twos and threes. Usually, they
made an effort to rise. I never can forget their
groans and strangled breathing as they tried to
get up. Some succeeded. Others lay lifelessly
where they had fallen. I observed that the Jap
guards paid no attention to these. I wondered
why. The explanation wasn't long in coming.
There was a sharp crackle of pistol and rifle fire
behind us.
Skulking along, a hundred yards behind our
contingent, came a 'clean-up squad' of
murdering Jap buzzards. Their helpless
victims, sprawled darkly against the white, of
the road, were easy targets.
As members of the murder squad stooped over
each huddled form, there would be an orange
'flash in the darkness and a sharp report. The
bodies were left where they lay, that other
prisoners coming behind us might see them.
Our Japanese guards enjoyed the spectacle in
silence for a time. Eventually, one of them who
spoke English felt he should add a little spice to
the entertainment.
'Sleep?' he asked. 'You want sleep? Just lie
down on road. You get good long sleep!'
On through the night we were followed by
orange flashes and thudding sounds."
The Bataan Death March
http://war.docuwat.ch/videos/the-war/the-war01-a-necessary-war/?channel_id=6
Episode 2, Part II, 24:24-15:20 left
The European Theater
 Hitler’s submarine wolf packs terrorize merchant
ships in the Atlantic
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Halted by the Brits cracking the German Enigma codes
 British and US planes begin bombing German cities
in ‘42
 German General Rommel (The Desert Fox) drives
across North Africa
 Russians stop German forces at the frigid Stalingrad
in 1942; Hitler’s eastern front begins to crumble
A Second Front
 Massive Soviet losses of troops and land lead for
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Russian calls for a second westward front
Despite promises, FDR agrees to postpone a mass
invasion of Europe until 1944
Direct their successful focus of 1943 to North Africa
led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
FDR and Churchill call for unconditional surrender
The Allies fight in Italy; Mussolini deposed and Italy
surrenders, but the Germans do not give up Italy
easily (fight to nearly the end of the war)
By July 1943, the Allied invasion of
Sicily and bombing of Rome caused
the Italian high command and King
Victor Emmanuel III to remove
Mussolini from power and place him
under house arrest. On April 28th
1945, Mussolini and his 33-year-old
mistress, Clara Petacci, were captured
by Italian partisans and were
executed by machine gun fire. In the
pre-dawn hours of April 29 the
corpses of Mussolini, Petacci and 14
fellow fascists were placed in a truck
and dumped like garbage in Milan’s
Piazzale Loreto, a deeply symbolic
public square for the anti-fascist
forces. There, eight months earlier,
fascists acting under orders from
Hitler’s SS publicly displayed the
bodies of 15 executed partisans.
Residents of Milan hurled invectives
and vegetables at the dictator’s corpse
before kicking, beating and spitting
upon it. One woman, deciding
Mussolini wasn’t dead enough for her,
emptied a pistol into the dictator’s
body and shouted, “Five shots for my
five assassinated sons!” The crowd
then strung the bodies of Mussolini,
Petacci and other fascists by their feet
from the girders of a gasoline station
in a corner of the square.
Death of Mussolini
D-Day: June 6, 1944
 The Big Three (FDR, Churchill, Stalin) meet in
Tehran in late 1943 to plan European invasion
 Eisenhower entrusted with overseeing millions of
Allied (mostly US) troops
 Normandy, on the coast of France, chosen for
invasion site on D-Day: June 6, 1944
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Eisenhower's Order of the Day
Omaha Beach
 After intense fighting on the beaches, American
troops led by General George S. Patton swept
through France and liberated Paris by August
Victory in Europe
 Soviets invaded eastern Germany by December 1944, while Allied
bombs bombarded German cities
 Hitler made one last gamble on the western front
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Attacked the thinly stretched American lines in the Ardennes Forest of
Belgium…with the goal of taking the town of Antwerp (key to Allied supplies)
Americans were driven back, creating a “bulge” in their line
The German advance in the Battle of the Bulge halted by the 101st Airborne
Division (Band of Brothers)
 As Americans and Soviets advanced into Germany, they discovered
the true extent of the Holocaust
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FDR had known of genocide, but refused to bomb the rails
Soviets pillaged and raped in Berlin
Hitler commits suicide in a Berlin bunker 4/30/1945
FDR dies on 4/12/1945…President Truman sworn in
Germany surrenders on 5/7/1945…V-E Day celebrated on the 8th
Victory over Japan
 American bombers reducing Japan’s paper cities to
ashes
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Massive fire-bombing of Tokyo in March 1945 killed 83,000
Tokyo burns
 General MacArthur returns and Philippines liberated
 4000 US troops die trying to take the volcanic island
of Iwo Jima
 50,000 troops die taking Okinawa
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Kamikaze suicide pilots take out 30 US ships
The Atomic Bombs
 Japan still refuses to unconditionally surrender
 An invasion of Japanese mainland calculated to cost hundreds
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of 1000s of US troops (and millions of Japanese)
Truman, Stalin, and British leaders meet at the Potsdam
Conference to discuss the end of the war and demand
Japanese surrender
Einstein had convinced FDR in 1940 to move ahead with
atomic bomb development
Manhattan Project proved successful with a test bomb in New
Mexico
Hiroshima atomic bomb kills 180,000 on 8/6/1945
Nagasaki atomic bomb kills 80,000 three days later
Japanese surrender on 8/10/1945
V-J Day celebrated on 9/2/1945
The War is Over
 Americans lose 300,000 soldiers, Soviets = 25 mill.
 More civilians died than soldiers
 Much of Europe and Asia left in ruins, while the
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American homeland left untouched
American political, military, and industrial
leadership shined
Did the New Deal or WWII end the Depression?
Should we have dropped the Atomic bombs?
The war is over…back to racism! And a new enemy!