Chapter 36: America in WWII

After the bombing at Pearl Harbor Americans want to go after Japan BUT politicians "getting Germany first“◦ Help the Soviet Union and Britain so they would

help us later.

Japanese Internment◦ Supreme court case: Korematsu vs. U.S. (1944)

End of New Deal Reform Era◦ End of CCC, WPA, NYA

War Production Board (WPB)◦ Produced weaponry (guns and planes)◦ Halted car production◦ rationing of gasoline

Office of Price Administration (OPA)◦ Regulated increased prices brought on by boom

War Labor Board (WLB)◦ Imposed ceilings on wage increases

Braceros – Mexicans brought in by the thousands to work in agriculture

Native Americans served in the armed forces.  ◦ Comanches in Europe and Navajos in the Pacific

made such valuable contributions as code talkers

◦ Moved off reservations for war industry jobs Women

◦ 216,000 employed by armed forces◦ Many women (6 million)started work in factories◦ “Rosie the Riveter”s

1.6 million blacks left South for the West and North. 

A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a massive "Negro March on Washington" in 1941

Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) forbid discrimination in defense industries

Mechanical cotton picker also hastened migration out of South, fewer cotton jobs 

Attacked the American outposts of Guam, Wake, and the Philippines.

In the Philippines, American forces, led by General MacArthur, surrendered on April 9, 1942.   ◦ Famous Bataan Death March of Americans and

Filipinos to POW camps

May 1942 Japanese v. U.S and Australia First action with aircraft carriers Japanese tactical victory but stopped

Japanese expansion

June 4th, 1942 Most important Pacific campaign Japan planned to lure US into trap

◦ Codebreakers determined details of plan◦ U.S. set up own ambush

Heavy loses weakened Japanese Navy Halted the Japanese juggernaut

The U.S. Navy strategy in the Japanese-held islands in the Pacific.  ◦ The strategy dictated that the American forces,

would reduce the fortified Japanese outposts.  ◦ Set up airfields and then neutralizing the enemy

bases through heavy bombing.  ◦ The outposts would then die due to lack of

essential supplies from the homeland. .

Hitler had entered the war with U-Boats.  ◦ Allies used old techniques, such as dropping

depth bombs from destroyers. The turning point - 1942. 

◦ Battle of El Alamein: drove the Germans all the way back to Tunisia. (North Africa)

In September 1942, the Soviets repelled Hitler's attack on Stalingrad, capturing thousands of German soldiers.  ◦ (The turning point in the war in the Soviet Union.)

 

Allied forces captured Sicily in August 1943. 

In September 1943, Italy surrendered unconditionally and Mussolini was overthrown. 

Germans would not let the Allies take control of Italy. 

Teheran Conference (Churchill + Roosevelt)◦ agreement on broad plans, especially those for

launching Soviet attacks on Germany from the east simultaneously with the Allied assault from the west.

General Eisenhower was given command. French Normandy was chosen for the point

for invasion ◦ less heavily defended than other parts of the

European coast. 

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord

After desperate fighting, the Allies finally broke out of the German ring that enclosed the beach. 

General George S. Patton led armored divisions across France extremely fast and efficiently. 

Paris was liberated in August 1944.

On December 16, 1944, Hitler threw all of his forces against the thinly held American lines in the Ardennes Forest. ◦ The Americans were driven back, creating a deep

"bulge" in the Allied line.  ◦ halted by the 101st Airborne Division (Battle of

the Bulge.) The Soviets reached and captured Berlin in

April 1945.  Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.

In April 1945, General Eisenhower's troops reached the Elbe River, finding the concentration camps where the Nazis had murdered over 6 million Jews.  Not until the war's end did all of the atrocities of the "Holocaust" appear.

The Soviets reached and captured Berlin in April 1945.  Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.

On April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage.  Harry S Truman took over the presidency.

On May 7, 1945, the German government surrendered unconditionally.

Strategic point in Pacific took US America over one month to take. The Marines lost 6,891 men killed and

18,070 wounded. Out of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the

island, only 212 were taken prisoners. What the battle did show the Americans was

how far the Japanese would go to defend their country – a decision that was to influence the use of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Potsdam conference near Berlin in 1945 sounded the death of the Japanese.  ◦ Truman and Stalin◦ Ultimatum to Japan:  surrender or be destroyed.

On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was  

With the Japanese still refusing to surrender, the “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. 

Hiroshima◦ 70,000 initially dead◦ 5 year death toll:200,000

Nagasaki◦ 40,000 initially dead◦ 140,000 within 5 years

On August 8, Stalin invaded the Japanese defenses of Manchuria and Korea.

After the Japanese still refused to surrender, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9.

On August 10, 1945, Tokyo surrendered under the condition that Hirohito be allowed to remain the emperor. 

The Allies accepted this condition on August 14, 1945.  The formal end to the war came on September 2, 1945.

American forces suffered some 1 million casualties in WWII, while the Soviet Union suffered nearly 20 million.

After the war, much of the world was destroyed while America was virtually left untouched. 

The nation was better prepared for the war than any other nation because it had begun to prepare about a year and a half before the war officially began.