America in a World at War

War on Two Fronts Asia & Europe

The American People in Wartime Retreat from Reform Prosperity & Production African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexican

Americans, Women & Children, Japanese Americans, and Chinese Americans

Defeat of the Axis Liberation of France The Pacific Offensive Atomic Warfare

What was the relationship like between Italy and France?

December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor attacked

MacArthur offensive from the South

Nimitz offensive from Hawaii

June 1942: Battle of Midway; US gains control in the Pacific

Patton offensive in Africa

October 1942: Counter-offensive in Northern Africa

Winter 1942 -1943: Soviets won at Stalingrad

July 1943: Patton’s invasion of Sicily

1942: News of the Holocaust reached America Genocide of not only Jews but of Romani, Polish and

Soviet citizens, homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses and political and religious opponents.

U.S. resisted military aid The State Department refused to let Jews enter the U.S.

St. Louis and its mostly Jewish passengers sailed from Germany to Cuba in 1939; while the US sought to find refuge for the passengers the St. Louis ultimately sailed back to Europe (Belgium)

Retreat & Reform FDR shifted priorities

from reform to the war effort and victory

Congress dismantled relief and other New Deal programs

1944 Presidential election saw Roosevelt re-nominated but with a less liberal Vice President Harry Truman

Prosperity & Production WWII ended the Great Depressions problems of

unemployment, deflation, and production 1942: the War Production Board was created to

mobilize production By 1944, the U.S.’s output was two times that of all

Axis nations combined

Chinese Americans US allied with China; helped advance Chinese American’s

legal and social position 1943: Chinese Exclusion Act repealed Many took jobs in industry or were drafted into the

military Japanese Americans

Many felt that Japanese-Americans had aided Japan in the Pearl Harbor attacks

1942: Roosevelt created the War Relocation Authority to move Japanese citizens to “relocation camps” for monitoring

Korematsu v. U.S. (1944) declared relocation constitutional

African-Americans Many wanted to use the war to improve conditions A. Philip Randolph sought to integrate the workforce FDR created FEPC; later CORE would combat

discrimination using popular resistance Native Americans

Some served in the military as “Code Talkers” Some left the reservation for work

Mexican Americans Labor shortages saw a large influx of Mexican

immigration 1943: “Zoot-suit riots” in Los Angeles

Women & Children Women began to work in

factories as men wen to war; inequalities still existed

Some worked in the service sector, others worked in heavy industry

Over 1/3 of teenagers began to work

Liberation of France 1944: Allies bombed Germans; reduced their

production and complicated their transportation June 6, 1944: Eisenhower ordered invasion of

Normandy (D-Day) May 8, 1945: Germans fully surrendered (V-E Day)

The Pacific Offensive June 1944: US defeated Japanese navy The Japanese continued to fight in February 1945

(Iwo Jima) and in June 1945 (Okinawa)

Atomic Warfare Manhattan Project: the discovery of uranium

radioactivity by Enrico Fermi in the 1930s and the evacuated Jewish physicist Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity helped America beat the Nazis in the race to create an atomic weapon

July 16, 1945: the plutonium bomb Trinity created by Robert Oppenheimer was successfully tested

President Truman issued an ultimatum for Japanese “unconditional surrender” by August 3

August 6, 1945: Hiroshima; 80,000 killed August 8, 1945: Nagasaki; 100,000 were killed September 2, 1945 Japan surrendered (V-J Day); end

of WWII