Chapter 17: The United States in World War II I. Mobilizing for Defense a. Americans Join the War Effort i. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they thought America would avoid further conflict with them ii. The Japan Times newspaper said America was trembling in their shoes iii. But if America was trembling, it was with rage, not fear iv. Remember Pearl Harbor was the rallying cry as America entered WWII v. Selective Service and the GI 1. After Pearl Harbor, 5 million men volunteer for military service 2. 10 million more drafted to meet needs of two-front war a. Draft expanded (from 21-35 to 18-45) 3. Volunteers and draftees trained for only eight weeks before going off to battle vi. Expanding the Military 1. Sensing the need for more forces, General George Marshall Army Chief of Staff called for a women s corps a. Women s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) women in non-combat positions b. Thousands enlist; auxiliary dropped, get full U. S. army benefits c. WACs worked as nurses, ambulance drives, radio operators, electricians, pilots, etc. 2. Other branches followed: a. WAVES = Navy b. SPARS = Coast Guard c. Women s Reserve of the Marine Corps vii. Recruiting and Discrimination 1. Minority groups (African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, etc.) are denied basic citizenship rights 2. This makes them question whether they should fight for democracy in other countries 3. Why die for democracy for some foreign country when we don t even have it here? viii. Dramatic Contributions 1. 300,000 Mexican Americans join armed forces a. 1 million African Americans serve b. live, work in segregated non-combat units 2. African Americans finally see action starting in 1943 3. 13,000 Chinese Americans serve 4. 33,000 Japanese Americans serve a. Many serving as spies and interpreters 5. 25,000 Native Americans enlist b. A Production Miracle i. The Industrial Response 1. Factories convert from civilian to war production ( Butter to Guns ) a. Automobile plants retooled to produce tanks, planes, boats, and command cars
b. Mechanical pencil company produced bomb parts 2. Shipyards and defense plants expand and new ones are built 3. War time goods (ships, arms, tanks, etc.) are able to be produced more rapidly a. use prefabricated parts b. people work at record speeds ii. Labor s Contribution 1. Nearly 18 million workers in war industries, 6 million are women 2. Over 2 million minorities hired; face strong discrimination at first a. A. Philip Randolph, head of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters b. Organizes march on D.C. to protest discrimination in the military and in war time industry 3. FDR, not wanting the march to distract from war effort, passes executive order forbidding discrimination and establishes Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) a. Investigated companies engaged in defense work to make sure that all qualified applicants, regardless of race, were considered for job openings iii. Labor Unions During the War 1. Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act limited the right to strike in industries crucial for the war effort and gave the president power to take over striking plants 2. National War Labor Board (NWLB) limited wage increases and kept unions stable during the war 3. Wildcat Strike Strikes without formal union authorization iv. Mobilization of Scientists 1. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) a. Formed to bring scientists into the war effort b. spurred technological innovations in mechanical devices (radar and sonar), pest control for jungle warfare (DDT), as well as in medicine c. The OSRD was also responsible for the development of the Atomic Bomb Manhattan Project c. The Federal Government Takes Control i. Office of War Mobilization 1. Coordinates all government agencies involved in the war effort 2. Economic Controls freezes prices a. Pushed congress to raise income tax rates, and extend the tax to millions of people who had never paid it before along with encouraging consumers to spend their extra cash on war bonds b. Hope reduced cash supply will reduced consumer demand on scarce goods and avoid inflation c. Rationing i. Rationing fixed allotments of goods needed by military ii. households received ration books with coupons to be used for buying such scarce goods as meat, shoes, sugar, coffee, and gasoline 1. Victory Gardens gardens planted to grow food (tomatoes, cucumbers, etc.) to conserve so farm goods could be shipped overseas
II. 2. Mondays & Wednesdays were wheatless days, Tuesday were a meatless day (one meal a day was to be meatless) (breakfast was to be meatless), & consumption of sugar was limited iii. Gas rationing was particularly hard on those who lived in western regions, where driving was the only way to get around 1. Workers carpooled or rode bicycles iv. Rationing also kept the price of goods fixed rather than having scarce goods spike in price as their demand increased v. Most Americans accepted rationing as a personal contribution to the war effort vi. Inevitably, some cheated by hoarding scarce goods or by purchasing them through the "black market," where rationed items could be bought illegally without coupons at inflated prices 3. War Production Board (WPB) a. Roosevelt created the WPB to increase military production by directing: b. the conversion of existing factories to wartime production ( Butter to Guns ) c. supervised the building of new plants d. allocated raw materials e. organized nationwide collection of recyclable goods i. scrap metal, tin cans, paper, rags, cooking fat, rubber, etc. The War for Europe and North Africa a. The United States and Britain Joined Forces 1. War Plans a. Starting on December 22, 1941 Churchill and Roosevelt met for three weeks working out their war plan b. Churchill talked FDR into striking against Hitler first convincing FDR that (Germany and Italy) is a greater threat 2. The Battle of the Atlantic a. The allies depended on supplies from the U.S., the 3,000-mile shipping lanes were their lifeline b. Hitler ordered submarine attacks against supply ships to Britain c. The German navy under the command of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, carried out total unrestricted submarine warfare to cut off Britain's imports and military supplies. i. Germany enjoyed success against unprotected U.S. ships ii. wolf packs destroyed more than 681 ships after only seven months d. Allies organized convoys of cargo ships with escort: i. groups of ships sailed together with destroyers (equipped with sonar) and planes (equipped with radar) ii. construction of Liberty ships (cargo carriers) speeds up (140 each month) and made up for lost ships b. The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean 1. The Battle of Stalingrad a. Hitler wanted to capture Caucasus oil fields and destroy Stalingrad b. For weeks Germans pressed in on Stalingrad
c. Stalin pleaded with Allied leaders Roosevelt and Churchill for an invasion of Western Europe that would take some pressure off the Soviet Union but was told that was a year away. d. Soviets defeated Germans in bitter winter campaign i. four months of severe house-to-house fighting in the Russian city of Stalingrad led to a stinging German defeat ii. over 230,000 Germans and 1,100,000 Soviets die iii. the Soviets suffered more casualties defending Stalingrad than the United States did in the entire war Stalin never forgave Roosevelt and Churchill for allowing this to happen e. Battle a turning point: Soviet army began to move towards Germany and the Germans now were on the defensive 2. The North African Front a. General Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded invasion of North Africa Operation Torch b. Allies chased the Afrika Korps, led by General Erwin Rommel ( the Desert Fox ) into Egypt c. Allies used camouflage and trickery to finally defeat Rommel and his Afrika Korps in 1943 i. used camouflage and dummy tanks ii. made Rommel believe the attack was coming from one way and then allies attacked from the other way 3. The Italian Campaign a. Allies decided that they would only accept an unconditional surrender from the Axis b. Churchill and FDR decided to attack Italy before going after Germany c. Summer 1943, Allies captured Sicily Italian government forced Mussolini to resign d. Hitler decided to reinforce Italy, he would rather fight in Italy than on German soil e. 1944 Allies won Bloody Anzio, a four month battle f. Germans continued strong resistance and the Allies don t completely free Italy until Germany itself collapsed 4. Heroes in Combat a. African Americans i. Tuskegee Airmen (99 th Pursuit Squadron) 1. fighter pilots trained at an airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama 2. four hundred and forty five fighter pilots flew as bomber escorts and ground attackers from May 1943 to June 1945 they were successful in protecting every single bomber they escorted ii. Buffaloes (92 nd Infantry Division) 1. highly decorated 2. only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during WWII b. Mexican-Americans i. win many awards (especially Company E of the 141 st Regiment, 36 th Division) ii. Blue Devils An elite combat unit who members were mostly Mexican- American
III. c. Japanese-American unit (100 th Battalion) most decorated unit in U.S. history c. The Allies Liberate Europe 1. D-Day (Operation Overlord) a. Allied forces landed at Normandy in Northern France on June 6, 1944 the largest military assault in history b. Led by Dwight D. Eisenhower, over 200,000 British, American, and Canadian forces landed at beaches named Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and Omaha i. the Allies left fake clues, set up phantom army, and sent fake radio messages to make it look like the invasion would take place near Calais, on the English Channel ii. Hitler refused to send reinforcements for the Axis troops 2. The Allies Gain Ground a. General Omar Bradley bombed roads, bridges, and German troops to create a gap in enemy defense line all the way to France b. General George Patton led Third Army through the gap and liberated Paris on August 25, 1944 c. FDR reelected for 4th term with running mate Harry S. Truman 3. The Battle of the Bulge a. October 1944, Allies captured first German town, Aachen b. Battle of the Bulge Germans final counter attack on the western front i. December, German tank divisions and 200,000 German troops drive 60 miles into Allied area ii. the Germans pushed through; however, the line only bulged but never broke iii. reinforcements arrived and the allies were able to push the Germans back. Germans push back but have irreplaceable losses c. Battle a turning point: Germans were now on the defensive in the Eastern Front too 4. Liberation of the Death Camps a. Allies in Germany, Soviets in Poland liberated concentration camps b. found starving prisoners, corpses, evidence of killing 5. Unconditional Surrender a. April 1945, Soviet army stormed Berlin; b. Hitler committed suicide deep under the ruins of Berlin in his secret bunker c. Eisenhower accepted unconditional surrender of German Reich d. May 8, 1945, V-E Day: Victory in Europe Day 6. Roosevelt s Death a. FDR died on April 12, 1945 b. Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes the 33 rd president The War in the Pacific a. Potsdam Conference i. Conference held in Potsdam, Germany to decide how to administer the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on May 8 (V-E Day) ii. Participants in the conference were Stalin (Soviet Union), Churchill (United Kingdom), and Truman (United States) as well as Clement Attlee, who had replaced Churchill after the 1945 general election in Great Britain
iii. The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of war 1. the division of Germany and Austria into four occupation zones (agreed on earlier at the Yalta Conference), and the similar division of Berlin and Vienna into four zones 2. Agreement on prosecution of Nazi war criminals 3. The expulsion of the German populations remaining outside the borders of Germany 4. The Allies estimated their losses and damages at 200 billion dollars On the insistence of the West, Germany was only obliged to pay off 20 billion in German property, current industry products, and work force iv. In addition, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan b. The Allies Stem the Japanese Tide i. Japanese Advances 1. In first 6 months after Pearl Harbor, Japan conquered an empire that was much bigger than Hitler s 2. On December 8, 1941, one day after Pearl Harbor, Japan launched its first invasion of U.S. controlled territory The Philippines 3. Gen. Douglas MacArthur leads Allied forces in Philippines 4. March 1942, Japanese trapped the U.S. and Filipino troops on Bataan Peninsula 5. FDR orders MacArthur to leave and as he leaves he promised I shall return 6. More than 70,000 survivors were forced to march through the jungle on their way to prison camp that was located away from the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines Bataan Death March a. more than 10,000 died b. some prisoners were prevented from drinking water while others were shot or beaten ii. Doolittle s Raid 1. April 18, 1942 Lt. Col. James Doolittle leads raid on Tokyo 2. The Doolittle Raid was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese home islands during World War II a. Hitting Japan lifted America s spirits and dampened Japanese spirits 3. The mission was especially notable in that it launched bombers from an aircraft carrier iii. Island Hopping 1. Also called leap frogging 2. U.S. strategy of bypassing heavily fortified Japanese positions and instead concentrating the limited Allied resources on strategically important islands 3. This strategy was possible because the United States had submarine forces a. provided an effective blockade preventing the Japanese from moving troops from island to island 4. Thus troops on islands which had been bypassed were left to "wither on the vine 5. This caused some Japanese troops, unaware that the war had ended, to continue fighting iv. Navajo Code Talkers
1. Also called Wind Talkers 2. 420 Navajo Marines served as radio operators for the Marines in the Pacific from 1942-1945 3. they spoke a code that used the Navajo language as its base 4. a message that used to take as long as 30 minutes to decipher the old way could now be done in minutes v. Battle of the Coral Sea 1. May 1942, Battle of the Coral Sea stopped the Japanese advancement on to Australia 2. U.S. and Australian soldiers and ships participated against the Japanese a. first battle in which aircraft carriers engaged each other b. first naval battle in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon each other 3. The engagement ended with no clear victor but a. U.S. did turn the Japanese back b. set the stage for the Battle of Midway one month later vi. Battle of Midway 1. Admiral Chester Nimitz commands U.S. naval forces in Pacific 2. Allies break code and know Japanese plan to attack Midway 3. Japanese fighters were met by a strong air response from the Hornet, Yorktown, and Enterprise 4. The Yorktown would be lost, and 5,000 Japanese fighting men were killed, but: a. Americans turned back a Japanese invasion force headed for Hawaii b. the Japanese threat to the Eastern Pacific was over c. The Allies Go on the Offensive i. Battle of Guadalcanal 1. Allied offensive begins August 1942 in Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands) 2. The Battle of Guadalcanal was one of the most important battles of World War II 3. Guadalcanal was the first Allied offensive movement and was Japan's first defeat on land ii. Battle of Leyte Gulf 1. October 1944, Allies converge on Leyte Island in Philippines 2. General MacArthur returns and announced People of the Philippines: I have returned 3. The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the last, largest, and most decisive naval engagement in the Pacific 4. Part of the US attempt to retake the Philippines 5. The battle was a disaster for the Japanese, who lost four aircraft carriers, three battleships, and several cruisers along with almost 500 planes 6. Japan uses kamikaze attack pilots crash bomb-laden planes into ships a. In the Philippines, 424 kamikaze pilots sunk 16 ships and damaged another 80 iii. Iwo Jima 1. Though Iwo Jima measures only a few square miles, it was critical as base from which planes can reach Japan
2. US Marines struggled to take Mount Suribachi, which the Japanese held with a strong system of tunnels and bunkers 3. 6,000 marines died taking island; of 20,700 Japanese, 200 survive 4. Flag Raising a. On February 19, 1945, 70,000 marines converged on the tiny, Japanesecontrolled island of Iwo Jima b. Four days later, they had captured Mount Suribachi, the island's highest point, but the battle for Iwo Jima would rage on for four more weeks c. Photographer Lou Lowery documented men hoisting an American flag on Mount Suribachi but the original flag was believed to be too small and was soon taken down to be kept as a souvenir by the commanding officer d. Joe Rosenthal, a wire-service photographer, saw the second flag raising, grabbed his camera, and clicked off a frame without even looking through his viewfinder Rosenthal's photo appeared the next morning on the front pages of American newspapers. iv. The Battle for Okinawa 1. April 1945 U.S. Marines invade Okinawa 2. The largest landing force in Pacific history invaded Okinawa 3. no shots were fired until the fifth day when 700 Japanese planes, including 350 kamikaze attacks on the US beachhead and naval task force 4. April June: 7,600 U.S. troops, 110,000 Japanese die 5. The Okinawa was perhaps the bloodiest of the Pacific War d. The Atomic Bomb Ends the War i. The Manhattan Project 1. The Manhattan Project was an effort to develop the first nuclear weapons 2. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the research director of Manhattan Project 3. July 1945, an atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico desert (Los Alamos) 4. Allies fear invasion of Japan may mean 1.5 million Allied casualties 5. In effort to save Allied lives, President Truman orders military to drop an atomic bombs on Japan ii. Hiroshima 1. August 6, Hiroshima, major military center, was the location chosen for the first ever atomic bomb to be dropped 2. "Little Boy nickname given to the bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945 by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay 3. After being released, it took about a minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion 4. The bomb destroyed everything in a 1.5 mile radius as well as giving out radiation that was eventually bounced back by mountains so the citizens got two doses iii. Nagasaki 1. After Hiroshima, Japan s leaders still refused to surrender 2. 3 days later, "Fat Man" was dropped on city of Nagasaki 3. By the end of the year, an estimated 200,000 people had dies as a result of injuries and radiation by the atomic blasts iv. V-J Day
1. V-J Day In face of these atomic disasters and the Soviet declaration of war, Japan on August 14, 1945 2. September, 2 1945 Japan officially surrendered to General MacArthur on the USS Missouri e. Rebuilding Begins i. The Yalta Conference 1. February 1945, FDR, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met to plan for the postwar peace 2. In order to appease Stalin, FDR and Churchill agree to temporarily divide Germany into 4 parts 3. Stalin promises free elections in Eastern Europe; will fight Japan 4. FDR gets support for conference that would meet in San Francisco in April of 1945 that would establish United Nations a. The meeting produced a charter for the United Nations (UN) b. In July 1945, when the Senate ratified the Charter by a vote of 89 to 2, the United States became the first nation to join the UN c. UN is based loosely on the League of Nations that was formed after World War I d. On October 24, 1945, the UN officially came into existence and established its headquarters in New York City ii. The United Nations 1. The General Assembly included all member nations 2. The Security Council addresses military and political problems and has the power to veto any action proposed by the General Assembly 3. The 15-member Security Council includes: a. 5 permanent members (United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China) b. 10 rotating elected members i. African: 3 members ii. Asian: 2 members iii. Latin American and Caribbean: 2 members iv. Western European: 2 members v. Eastern European: 1 member iii. The Nuremberg War Trials 1. Nuremberg trials 24 Nazi leaders tried, sentenced a. charged with crimes against humanity, against the peace, war crimes i. Crimes Against Humanity the murder, extermination, deportation, or enslavement of civilians ii. Crimes Against the Peace planning and waging an aggressive war iii. War Crimes acts against the customs of warfare, such as the killing of hostages and prisoners, the plundering of private property, and the destruction of towns and cities 2. Establish principle that people responsible for own actions in war iv. The Occupation of Japan 1. MacArthur commands U.S. occupation forces in Japan
IV. 2. International Military Tribunal for the Far East Over 1,100 Japanese tried and sentenced a. Seven, including Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, sentenced to death 3. MacArthur reshapes Japan s economy (free-market) and government (democracy) MacArthur Constitution The Home Front a. Opportunity and Adjustment i. Economic Gains 1. Defense industries boom, unemployment falls to 1.2% in 1944 a. average pay rises 10% during war 2. Farmers prosper from rising crop prices, good weather, and increase in production a. many pay off mortgages 3. Percentage of women in work force rises to 35% a. Rosie the Riveter i. The symbol of patriotic female defense workers ii. Women worked in war plants and replaced men in a host of jobs ranging from newspaper reporting to truck driving ii. Populations Shifts 1. War triggers mass migrations to towns with defense industries iii. Social Adjustments 1. Families adjust to fathers in military and mothers working a. mothers rear children alone along with help from neighbors, relatives, and child-care b. many teenagers without parents at home drifted into juvenile delinquency 2. Families must get to know each other again after fathers return 3. Many couples rush to marry before husband goes overseas 4. 1944 GI Bill of Rights or Servicemen s Readjustment Act: a. pays education; guarantees loans for homes and new businesses b. Discrimination and Reaction i. Civil Rights Protests 1. Racial tensions rise in overcrowded Northern cities 2. James Farmer founds Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) a. works to confront urban segregation in the North b. in 1942, COORE staged its first sit-in at a segregated Chicago restaurant. 3. 1943 racial violence sweeps across country Detroit riots worst case ii. Tensions in Los Angeles 1. Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that erupted in Los Angeles, California during World War II 2. Pitted anti-mexican sailors and soldiers Mexican American pachucos (youth gangs) recognized because of the zoot suites they favored 3. On June 3, 1943, a group of servicemen on leave complained that they had been assaulted by a gang of pachucos and in response they attacked all the men they found wearing zoot suits 4. In many instances, the police intervened by arresting pachucos for disturbing the peace
5. Several hundred pachucos and nine sailors were arrested as a result of the fighting that occurred over the next few days 6. The government finally intervened on June 7, by declaring that Los Angeles would henceforth be off-limits to all military personnel 7. In response to the riots, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in her weekly column about the problems faced by the Mexican American community as a result of racism in the US c. Internment of Japanese Americans i. February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ordering all Japanese Americans away from military facilities 1. Under authority of this order, the US military forced 110, 000 Japanese Americans in four states from their homes and businesses during the war and placed them in camps, despite no evidence of disloyalty, but due to strong anti-japanese feelings 2. Two-thirds of the interned Japanese were United States citizens who had lived in the United States for several generations ii. 1944 Korematsu v. United States 1. At the urging of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Fred Korematsu did not leave his home after Executive Order 9066 2. The Supreme Court upheld Korematsu s conviction and argued that military necessity made internment constitutional iii. Many Japanese Americans remained imprisoned until 1945 iv. After war, Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) pushes for compensation 1. Norman Mineta Japanese American whose direct experience in an American detention camp fueled his later efforts to demand reparations from the U.S. government for all Japanese Americans v. 1988, Congress grants $20,000 to everyone sent to relocation camp WWII General Time Line September 30, 1938 Munich Agreement (Appeasement) September 1, 1939 WWII Begins (German Blitzkrieg of Poland) Summer 1940 Battle of Britain (Germany bombing Britain) August 14, 1941 Atlantic Charter (British & U.S. Post-War Plan) December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor Attack April 18, 1942 Doolittle s Raid Summer 1942 Battle of Stalingrad (U.S.S.R. vs. Germany) May 1942 Battle of Coral Sea June 4, 1942 Battle of Midway
August 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal November 8, 1942 Operation Torch (Allied invasion of Northern Africa) October 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf June 6, 1944 D-Day (Allied invasion of Normandy, France) October 1944 Battle of the Bulge February 4, 1945 Yalta Conference (Post-War Plan Conference) February 19, 1945 Iwo Jima April 12, 1945 FDR Dies April 1945 The Battle for Okinawa May 8, 1945 V-E Day (Victory in Europe) July 18, 1945 Potsdam Conference (Post-War Plan Conference) August 6, 1945 Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima August 9, 1945 Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki August 14, 1945 V-J Day (Victory in Japan) September, 2 1945 Japan officially surrendered U.S. Two Front War; Germany Two Front War European Front (Theatre) East: Germany vs. U.S.S.R. West: Germany vs. France, Britain, U.S. Pacific Front (Theatre) U.S. vs. Japan