America in a World at War

I. War on Two FrontsContaining the Japanese

– Allied territories begin to fall shortly after Pearl Harbor• •

– General Douglas MacArthur•

– Admiral Chester Nimitz•

– Victorious Battles for U.S.• •

• – Gavutu– –

– With help from Aussies and Kiwis… US began long, slow march towards Japan

– In Europe US had less control over military operations than in Pacific

• – George C. Marshall, supported a plan for a

major Allied invasion of France across the English Channel in the Spring of 1943

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• – Roosevelt decides to support the British plan,

against advice of advisors•

– African difficulties•

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Holding off the Germans

– General George S. Patton•

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• – Russians able to hold off huge German offensive in the winter of

1943•

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• – First U.S. European Invasion: Sicily

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Holding off the Germans Continued

America and the Holocaust

– As early as 1942 America had evidence of Nazi extermination of Jews, poles, gypsies, homosexuals and communists

– American government continually resisted almost all plans to rescue individuals from Nazi death camps

– U.S. Planes flew missions within miles of Auschwitz: Military refused to destroy crematoriums… “militarily unfeasible”

– Jews escaping refused entry into the United States•

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– Anti-Semite Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long– Allied forces insisted the most important thing they could

do to combat Nazi genocide was concentrate all forces in an attack against Germany

II. The American People in WartimeA. Prosperity

– WWII’s most profound impact on American Life was the ending of the Depression

– Most important agent in recovery: federal spending

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The War and the West

• US gov’t created large manufacturing facilities in California and elsewhere to serve the needs of it’s military

• Gov’t made almost $40 billion in capital investments• Henry J. Kaiser

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• Western cities grow in size

Henry J. Kaiser

Labor and the War– war created a serious labor shortage

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– Civilian workforce increased by almost 20 percent during the war… groups of people began working who before it was considered in-appropriate to work

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Labor and the WarContinued

– Increase in union membership, but increase in federal restrictions on work stoppages

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– Despite these plans, nearly 15,000 work stoppages during the war

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– Smith-Connally Act … passed despite FDR’s veto… required unions to wait thirty days before striking and empowered the president to seize a struck war plant

Stabilizing the Boom

– from fear of deflation (not enough currency, low prices) to inflation (too much, high prices) during the war

– Anti-Inflation Act: gave president the authority to freeze agricultural prices, wages, salaries and rents

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– Government Spending•

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Mobilizing Production

– one failed agency after another finally leads to War Production Board (WPB)

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– WPB’s authority is transferred to Office of War Mobilization (OWM)… only slightly more successful

– Despite administrative problems, economy met all of the nation’s critical war needs

– Development of synthetic rubber over natural rubber– USA output was twice of all the Axis countries

combined

*Fake Smile**Fake Smile*

The Internment of Japanese Americans

– WWII different from WWI … not as much propaganda or hatred directed towards Europe

• – Different attitude towards Asian enemy than towards European enemy

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– Despite cultural assimilation, belief was widespread that Japanese Americans could never become “real” Americans

– Leaders make scathing and unfounded comments• • •

The Internment of Japanese Americans

Continued– War Relocation Authority (WRA)

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– Japanese Americans lost everything• •

– Nisei army fights with high distinction in Europe– Korematsu v. U.S.

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• – 1988 Japanese Americans win compensation for

their loses

Chinese Americans and the War

– Relations increased due to Alliance with China– Congress finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion

Acts which had barred Chinese immigration since 1892

– 4,000 Chinese women entered the United States in the first years after the war… mail order brides

– Improving image• • •

The Retreat from Reform

– replacing “Dr. New Deal” with “Dr. Win the War”

– Republicans gaining ground in Washington

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• – 1944 Election

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III. The Defeat of the AxisThe Liberation of France

– By 1944 American and British bombers were attacking German industrial centers and other targets around the clock

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– Air battles weakened the Luftwaffe– American forces obtain an “Ultra” machine… able to crack German

code– June 6, 1944: D-Day

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• – Slow advance

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The Liberation of France Continued

– Battle of the Bulge•

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• – Surrounding all corners

• Soviets made strong advances in the East… Oder River• Omar Bradley moving in from west… Cologne

– • Montgomery pushed into Northern Germany with a million troops

– Taking Berlin• •

– April 30, 1945 Hitler killed himself in his bunker in the capital– May 8, 1945 remaining German forces surrender unconditionally

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The Pacific Offensives

– Feb 1944 Chester Nimitz wins a series of victories in the Marshall Islands and cracked the outer perimeter of the Japanese Empire

– American submarines destroying Japanese shipping and crippling the nation’s domestic economy

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– Land battles encounter frustration• •

The Pacific Offensives Continued– Decisive battle for Pacific in the Pacific

• June 1944, enormous American armada struck the heavily fortified Mariana Islands, Tinian, Guam and Siapan–

• Oct 1944 General MacArthur landed in the Philippines– – –

– Very difficult for troops to advance on land• only island U.S. is able to capture is tiny Iwo Jima

– • Okinawa: taken at the cost of 50,000 troops

– What next?• hard to fight troops on land• BUT Japanese has no navy left• July 1945, Tokyo firebombed: 80,000 dead• US Navy able to shell coastal targets in Japan from offshore• Emperor Hirohito gives directions to military leaders to make surrender negotiations…

could not persuade military leaders to give up– –

• would moderates have prevailed?

The Manhattan Project

– 1939 reports reach U.S. military intelligence that the Germans are attempting to produce atomic fission in uranium

– Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi – physicists from Europe, exile to the U.S.

– From 1941 on, gov’t secretly poured $2 billion dollars into the Manhattan Project… massive scientific effort conducted at hidden laboratories

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– J. Robert Oppenheimer in charge of creating the bomb

– War in Europe ends just before they are ready to test the first bomb

– July 16, 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico: first atomic explosion in history

– Bomb instantly moves from a scientific project to a weapon of war

Atomic Warfare

– Roosevelt dies in office in April 1945… News of explosion reaches Truman (Truman had no knowledge of weapon prior to FDR’s death)

– Truman issues warning to Japan, signed jointly by Britain: “unconditional surrender or face complete devastation”

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– Should the bomb have been dropped?•

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Atomic Warfare Continued

– Truman orders the use of atomic weapons on Japan• August 6, 1945 Enola Gay drops atomic weapon on Hiroshima… within moments…

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• Japanese government, stunned, unable to agree to a response• August 8, 1945 Russia declares war on Japan• August 9, 1945 another atomic bomb dropped… Nagasaki

– – September 2, 1945 Japanese surrender signed aboard American battleship Missouri– In the end…

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• “This thing must not be permitted to exist on this earth. We must not be the most hated and feared people in the world.”