CHAPTER 25

THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD WAR II

What happened at after Pearl Harbor?

• 5 million men volunteered for the armed services

• Draft was in place to complete the 10 million needed to join.

• Basic training to a group of men with no experience

How was the military expanded?

• George Marshall pushed for the formation of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)

• Women in noncombat positions. (nurses, drivers, radio, operators, electricians, and pilots.

How did minority groups contribute to the military?

• 25,000 American Indians, 1 million African Americans, 50,000 Asian Americans, and 300,000 Mexican Americans served in segregated units.

How did businesses help the war effort?

• Plants retooled machines to produce tanks, planes, boats, cars, and various war supplies.

• Women and minorities were millions of the workers in the factories.

• A. Philip Randolph- called for equality in the workplace and was supported by FDR.

Rosie the Riveter

What was the purpose of the Manhattan Project?

• Office of Science Research and Development to improve sonar and radar.

• Manhattan Project- created the atomic bomb.

• Led by scientists Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

• Secret operation

How did the government take control of the economy?

• Office of Price Administration- freezing prices on goods.

• Encouraged buying of war bonds

• Rationing- meat, shoes, sugar, coffee, gas, material collection sites.

• War Production Board- decided what companies would convert factories to war time production.

War Bonds

World War II Collection Bins

Gas Rationing

What was the Battle of the Atlantic?

• Germans wanted to prevent food and supplies from reaching Great Britain and the Soviets.

• Last 46 months and by mid 1943 the Allies were winning.

• 681 Allied ships were destroyed.

What happened at the Battle of Stalingrad (Leningrad)?

• Turning point of the war in Eastern Europe.

• Soviet people defended the city in horrible conditions from the Germans.

• Held off the Germans for over 900 days and over ½ the city’s population died. (Over 1 million Soviets dead)

What was happening in North Africa?

• Operation Torch- invasion of North Africa led by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

• Faced German general Erwin Rommel (Desert Fox)

• El Alamein (1942)- Battle in North Africa, Egypt.

Who were the heroes of World War II?

• Tuskegee Airmen- Defeated both Italian and German Air Force.

• Buffaloes- African American regiment that won many honors.

• Mexican Americans won 17 Congressional Medal of Honors.

• Nisei Regiment- Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team most decorated in History.

Who were the Navajo Code Talkers?

• Served in Marines from 1942-1945.

• Talk and transmit information on tactics, troop movements, orders and other vital battlefield information via telegraphs and radios in their native dialect.

• Helped win the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific.

What was the importance of D-Day?

• June 6, 1944- Allied Invasion of Normandy (France)

• Turning Point of the War in Western Europe

• Lead generals were Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton.

• 3,000 American dead, 6,000 wounded.

• Beginning of the end for the Germans.

What was the Battle of the Bulge?

• Battle in December 1945 in Germany.

• Germans lost 120,000 troops, 600 tanks and 1,600 planes.

• All the Germans could do is retreat.

How did the war in Europe end?

• American soldiers liberated Nazi death camps

• Hitler shot himself and his wife took poison.

• FDR dies on April 12, 1945 and Harry Truman becomes President.

• V-E Day- May 8 1945 victory in Europe Day

Who was Douglas MacArthur?

• Lead American General in the Pacific.

• Americans faced heavy losses in 1941-1942.

• Doolittle’s Raid- Pearl Harbor style raid over Japan.

• Battle of Coral Sea- May 1942 Americans began to turn back the Japanese

What was the Battle of Midway?

• Turning point of World War II in the Pacific- June 1942

• Admiral Charles Nimitz was the lead general.

• Used island hopping strategy

Who were the kamikazes?

• Japanese suicide plane attacks

• Supreme sacrifice for Japan and the Emperor.

What happened at the Battle of Iwo Jima?

• More than 6,000 U.S. Marines died. (1945)

• Only 200 Japanese troops survived

• American victory with a high cost in lives.

What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

• August 6 1945- the plane the Enola Gay drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

• August 9, 1945- Atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki

• Over 200,000 Japanese civilians die

• Forces Japan’s surrender

What was decided at the Yalta Conference?

• February 1945- Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill meet.

• Decided to divided Germany postwar.

• Creation of the United Nations postwar.

What were the Nuremberg Trials?

• Nazi war criminals were brought to trial on charges of crimes against humanity.

• Could not use defense “just following orders”

• Individual responsibility was now part of international law.

After World War II, what happened to Japan?

• Japan was occupied by U.S. military.

• More than 1,100 Japanese were put on trial for treatment of prisoners of war.

• General MacArthur helped Japanese write a new constitution.

What was the Geneva Convention?

• 1949- established rules for countries keeping prisoners of war.

Who was James Farmer?

• Founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

• Started to protest against segregation

What were the Zoot Suit Riots?

• Summer 1943- Anti-Mexican riots in Los Angeles

• Servicemen attacked Mexicans because it had been reported that Mexicans attacked other servicemen.

What was Japanese Internment?• Feb. 1942 Executive Order

9066- 110,000 Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast were put into internment camps.

• 2/3 were Nisei or American born Japanese ancestry

• Lost homes and businesses.• Korematsu v. U.S. (1944)-

internment was a military necessity

• 1988- Japanese Americans received government reparations.

Japanese propaganda

Japanese Propaganda

Japanese Propaganda