America in World War II
Chapter 35
AP Notes
Why was time the most needed
weapon?
• Great Britain and S. U. could fall to
the Germans
• German scientists….
• Retool for war production
• Needed to supply forces on 2
fronts
How did Japan’s attack on Peal
Harbor impact America?
• Unified the nation on the war effort
• Anti – interventionism withered
away
• WWII sped assimilation of ethnic
groups
• Italian and German Americans well
established and supporters of FDR
• Repression generally absent
What actions were taken against
Japanese Americans?
•
•
•
•
Pearl Harbor…
120,000 Japanese Americans…
Executive Order 9066…
Rooted in racial prejudice and
jealousy…
• Korematsu v. U.S….
• Compensation….
How did the war affect the size
of government and the budget?
• Budget 10x its New Deal
amount
• Defense spending $9 billion 
$98 billion
• Number of federal employees
quadrupled
What happened to the Depression?
• It’s over
• 1942 election  more Republicans
sent to Congress – block New Deal
legislation
• Concentrate on supplying planes,
ships, guns, and food
• 1942-1945 – GNP doubled
How did America become the
“Arsenal of Democracy”?
• Wartime conversion
– Automobile factories  tanks and
airplanes
– Could not buy many consumer items
– Major companies retooled to produce
war material
How did the U.S. out-produce the
Axis?
•
•
•
•
Large industrial base
Natural resources
Large labor supply
American workers twice as productive
as German and 5 x as productive as
Japanese
What was the role of the War
Production Board?
•
•
•
•
•
Manage the economy…
Factories operated around the clock
Synthetic rubber and fabrics created
Created 17 million jobs
Increased American productive
capacity by 50%
• GNP in 1939 was $88.6 billon to $198.7
billion in 1944
How effective was the War
Production Board?
• 1940-45 totals
– 250,000 planes
– 80,000 landing craft
– 650,000 artillery pieces
– 15 million rifles
– 100,000 armored cars
– 75,000 tanks
– Millions of tons of bombs
– 41 billion rounds of ammunition
Ship-building: Henry Kaiser
• 1941 – 355 days to build a battle ship
• 1945 – 14 days
• Pre-fabrication
desc
detnews2
FILEDATE
popupresu
Search
B-24s on the runway at Ford’s
Willow Run plant
Demographic Changes?
• California received 10% of defense
funds…
• Movement from the South to Detroit
and California…
• Southern textiles profited…
• Poor sharecroppers and tenant farmers
got jobs in factories..
• Middle class doubled….
How was farming impacted by the
war?
• Good times for Am. Farmers…
• Productivity soared
• Technology and fertilizers
improved…
• Increased prices
• Decreased farm population
• Value of farm land increased
How did the war affect
employment?
• Full employment – longer hours
• Overtime – time and a half
• Increased hiring of minorities and
women…
• Unemployment was 9.9% in 1941
and 1.2% in 1945
How did employment change for
women?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Women encouraged to work…
Earned $0.65 on the dollar to a man
Considered temporary…
Broke stereotypes...
Found work exciting…
Better pay than traditional jobs…
Norman
Rockwell’s
Rosie the
Riveter
What strains did war place on
families?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Housing shortages…
Rationing…
Balancing work and households…
Lack of child care…
Latchkey kids…
Juvenile delinquency…
High school drop-outs…
Ration coupons
for meat, milk,
sugar, cheese,
coffee, butter,
and gasoline
Other war time trends?
•
•
•
•
•
Marriage rate up…
Incomes up….
Divorce rate up…
Public health improved…
Death rate down…
What was the “Double V”
campaign?
• Destroy racism at home and abroad
• Victory on battlefield and over racial
discrimination
• Black support of war hinged upon
America’s commitment to racial justice
How was A. Philip Randolph a
leader in civil rights?
• President of the Sleeping Car Porters
Union…
• Organized a march on Washington
demanding that the gov’t open jobs in
the defense industry to blacks
• Executive Order 8802…
• Fair Employment Practices
Commission…
What was CORE?
• Interracial – Congress of Racial
Equality
• Pacifists…
• Sit-ins…
• Integrate diners – Jack Sprat
Coffee Houses in Chicago
What were the goals of the
NAACP?
• Anti – lynching and poll tax
legislation
• End discrimination in the
military
• End black disenfranchisement
• Membership grew from 50,000
in 1940 to 450,000 in 1945
What was the source of racial
tension during the war?
• Black migration -1.2 million
left the South to work in
defense industry…
• Housing shortage…
• Whites objected to
economic equality..
• Increased black militancy…
White mob in Detroit streets - 1943
How did blacks gain by the war
experience?
• More blacks are voting…
• Other countries are aware of racism in
the U.S…
• The U.S. appears hypocritical….
• High expectations from blacks…
• 1 million blacks in the military – slowly
begins to integrate…
The American G. I.?
•
•
•
•
16.4 million Americans served
“Government Issue”…
Considered temporary service…
Beginning of a more homogenized
society…
• Depended on solidarity of the group for
survival…
How did women serve in the
military?
•
•
•
•
350,000
WACS
WAVES
Better educated and more skilled
than…
• Administration, communication,
clerical, health-care
• Government feared “immorality”…
WACS during WWII
What was the status of the African
American soldier?
• 1 million served
• All-black regiments with white
officers…
• Majority in Signal, Engineer, and
Quartermaster Corps – construction
and stevedore work…
• Minority given fighting and low officer
status near the end of the war…
• Encountered discrimination
everywhere…
What was the status of Japanese –
American soldiers?
•
•
•
•
Also fought in segregated units
Fought in European theater
Served as interpreters in U.S.
442d regiment fought in France
and Italy
Objectives….
• Explain American strategy to
counter Japanese successes in
the Pacific
• Describe Allied effort to defeat
Hitler
• Discuss the final military efforts
that brought Allied victory in
Europe and Asia
The Atlantic Charter – August,
1941
• Self
determination
• Equal trading
rights
• System of
general security
War in the Pacific
Japanese victories
• Philippines
• Malaya
• Thailand
• Hong Kong
• Guam
• Wake Island
• Gilbert Islands
• Manila
• Singapore
• Dutch East Indies
Bataan Death March – April,
1942
Camp O’Donnel – Death camp – 1,600
Americans died here as well as 10,000
Filipinos
Battle of Coral Sea
Battle of Coral Sea
• Japanese goals ……
• Outcome of the battle ….
• Significance ….
Battle of Midway 1942
• Japanese goals…
• Results of the battle: 4 Japanese
aircraft carriers were destroyed
• Significance: Turning point of
WWII in the Pacific
Yorktown is
abandoned
Japanese torpedo planes
attack the USS Yorktown
Battle of Guadalcanal
• Situation in
the Pacific
• Strategy of
island
hopping
Early Danger
• Allies decide to concentrate on
defeating Hitler and use defensive
action against the Japanese in the
Pacific
• Hitler was seen as the greater
threat
• June 22, 1941 – Germany attacked
the Soviet Union
Siege of Leningrad – 900 days
Battle of Stalingrad
• 300,000 German
troops
• 4 months
• More Russians died
than Americans in
the entire war
• Turning point of the
war in Europe
North Africa
• German and Italian forces were fighting in
North Africa
• Field Marshal Erwin Rommel – the “Desert
Fox”
• Target – Suez Canal and oil
• Germans invaded Egypt and came within 70
miles from Alexandria
• Soviet Union wanted a second major front
in France
Operation Torch
• November, 1942
• Eisenhower invaded
Morocco
• Montgomery drove
from Egypt
• Rommel caught in
between
– Lost
– 250,000 Germans
surrendered
Invasion of Sicily - 1943
•
•
•
•
Soft underbelly of Europe
Italy surrendered Sept.
Mussolini rescued by Germans
Allies fought their way north against the
Germans
• 1944 Allies landed at Anzio
• Six months later Allies took Rome
Mussolini and
his mistress
were dragged
through the
streets of Rome
and hung
upside down in
humiliation.
Battle of the Atlantic
• 1943-1944
• Characterized by the contributions of
science and technology
• Radar and sonar – depth charges
• RAF and USAF – strategic bombing –
night and day – incendiary bombing –
• Hamburg – 60,000 dead
• Dresden – incendiary bombing
Aftermath of firebombing in Dresden Germany
Dresden
Soviet Offensive-1943
• Reclaimed Russian cities
• Poland – established a puppet
government at Lublin
• Romania
• Bulgaria
• Helped Marshal Tito in
Yugoslavia
Casablanca-1943
• Roosevelt
• Churchill
• Unconditional
surrender
• Resolve to
attack Italy
before France
Election 1944
• Democrats – FDR and Truman
• Republicans – Thomas Dewey and John
Bricker
• Issue – FDR’s failing health
• Outcome
– FDR wins an unprecedented fourth term
– Strength for FDR in urban vote
– Congress is increasingly conservative and
Republican
Tehran Conference
• Churchill, Stalin,
and FDR
• Agreed to
invasion across
English Channel
• Began air strikes
to soften
Germany
Operation Overlord
•
•
•
•
•
D-Day – June 6, 1944
Eisenhower - commander
150,000 Allied soldiers
5 beaches
Goal?
Liberation of Paris
• Pushed through to Paris
• Rapid Allied advance
• Germans retreated rapidly
Battle of the Bulge
• German counter –offensive
• Bulged into the Allied lines
• Total surprise to the Allies
• Month long battle
• American losses – 75 to
80,000
Yalta Conference – February,
1945
•
•
•
•
•
Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill
Germany divided into 4
Berlin divided into 4
“friendly gov’t in Poland”
S.U. to get ½ reparations
Yalta
• S.U. will enter war
against Japan
• UN decided upon
• Agreed to try
German and
Japanese criminals
of war
Defeat of Germany
• Allies attacked from the west with
Eisenhower
• Allies stopped 50 miles west of Berlin
• Soviets took Berlin
• Russians and U.S. met at Elbe River
• May 8 - terms
Discovery of the Holocaust
• 1942 – “Final Solution” – systematic
campaign to liquidate European Jews
• Extermination camps in Poland
• 6 million Jews – over 1 million children
• 5 million Slavs, Gypsies and enemies of
the German State
April 12, 1945
• Death of FDR
• Harry Truman
– Vice President
– From Missouri
– Not in the inner
circle
– No – nonsense
approach with
Soviets
– Plain speaker
Deterioration of Soviet-American
relations
• Truman had no patience with S.U.
• Wanted free elections in Poland
• Told S.U. to keep promises of
Yalta
• Wanted Soviet help in defeating
Japan and creating U.N.
• Met at Potsdam
Defeat of Japan
• Iwo Jima
– 700 miles from Japan-base to bomb Japan
– 5 miles square
– 6 weeks and 26,000 marine casualties
• Okinawa
– 350 miles from Japan
– 7,600 Am. Deaths/110,000 Japanese
deaths
– Kamikaze attacks
• Naval Blockade and aerial bombing of Japan
Marines at Iwo Jima
Potsdam Conference – July,
1945
• Truman, Stalin, Attlee, Churchill
• Truman informed Stalin of bomb
• Issued order that bomb be used if
Japan did not surrender by Aug. 3
Decision to drop the bomb
• Interim Committee
• Would cost 1,000,000 Am. Lives to
invade Japan
• Drop on a deserted island – might
work
• Japan near surrender – wanted to
keep Emperor
VJ Day – August 14
• Cost of war:
–292,000 Americans died
–18 million Russians
–4 million Germans
–2 million Japanese
–Total: 60 million people