WWII (1939 – 1945)
"Never in the field of human conflict, has so much, been owed by so many, to so few!"
Winston Churchill - September 1940

• 48a - explain A. Philip Randolph's proposed march on Washington, D.C. and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's response
• 48b - explain the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the internment of
Japanese-Americans
• 48c - explain major events including the Lend-Lease program, the Battle of
Midway, the Normandy Invasion, the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Battle of the
Bulge, the fall of Berlin, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• 48d - describe war mobilization, as indicated by rationing, war bond drives, war-time conversion, and the role of minority groups in war industries
• 48e - evaluate the role of women and other minorities in the military during
World War II
• 48f - describe Los Alamos and the scientific, economic, and military implications of developing the atomic bomb (Manhattan Project)
• 48g - compare the geographic locations of the European Theater and the
Pacific Theater and the difficulties the U.S. faced in delivering weapons, food, and medical supplies to troops

• Causes
• Why did we win?
• Important battles
• Major players
• Who was affected?
• How did it affect the home front?

• 1939-1945 (U.S. directly involved starting in 1941)
• The most destructive and deadly conflict in the history of humankind (40-70M+ dead)
• The Nazi Holocaust was responsible for the genocide of 6M Jews
• The war set the stage for a new age of U.S. prosperity and power
• The aftermath of the war also created the World’s first superpowers and set the conditions for the Cold
War

•
Failures of the World War I Peace
Settlement
• Treaty of Versailles causes anger, resentment in Europe
• Germany resents blame for war, loss of colonies, border territories
• New democracies flounder under social, economic problems
• Dictators rise; driven by nationalism, desire for more territory

• Summarize the causes of WWII

Benito Mussolini
“Il Duce”
Italy
Fascist Party
• Extreme nationalism
• Militaristic expansion
• Charismatic leader
• Private property w/strong govt controls
• Anti-communist
Adolph Hitler
“The Fuhrer”
Germany
Nazi Party
• Extreme nationalism and racism
• Militaristic expansion
• Strong leader
• Private property w/strong govt controls
• Anti-communist
Joseph Stalin
U.S.S.R.
Communist Party
• Worldwide spread of communism
• Revolution by workers
(proletariat)
• State ownership of property and control all means of production

1. What were the conditions in
Germany that left it vulnerable to
Nazism?
1. What book did
Hitler write that outlined his vision?
1. How was Hitler able to take over control of
Germany?

• Adolf Hitler leader of National Socialist German
Workers’ Party
• Mein Kampf —basic beliefs of Nazism , based on extreme nationalism
• Wants to unite German-speaking people, enforce racial “purification”
• 1932, 6 million unemployed; many men join Hitler’s private army
• Nazis become strongest political party; Hitler named chancellor
• Third Reich established

What are these propaganda posters trying to say ?

• 1931, Nationalist military leaders seize Manchuria
• Militarists take control of Japanese government

• Americans Cling to Isolationism
• 1935 Neutrality Acts try to keep U.S. out of future wars
- outlaws arms sales, loans to nations at war

• 1938: Germany takes over Austria (peacefully) and Czechoslovakia
▫ Appeasement – giving up principles to pacify and aggressor

"Hitler accepts the ovation of the Reichstag after announcing the `peaceful' acquisition of Austria. It set the stage to annex the Czechoslovakian
Sudetenland, largely inhabited by a German- speaking population." Berlin,
March 1938. 208-N-39843.

Things get serious…
Blitzkrieg in Poland
• Sept. 1939, Hitler overruns Poland in blitzkrieg , lightning war
• Germany annexes western Poland;
U.S.S.R. attacks, annexes east
• France, Britain declare war on
Germany;
World War II begins

• The Battle of Britain (1940)
• Battle of Britain —German planes bomb British targets
• Hitler calls off invasion of Britain
• Germans, British continue to bomb each other’s cities

• Hitler’s Final Solution—slavery, genocide of
“inferior” groups
▫ Genocide —deliberate, systematic killing of an entire population
▫ Target Jews, gypsies, freemasons, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, unfit Germans
▫ Nazi death squads round up Jews, shoot them
IMAGES COMING UP ARE GRAPHIC

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• The Lend-Lease Plan
• FDR tells nation if Britain falls, Axis powers free to conquer world
U.S. must become “arsenal of democracy”
• By late 1940, Britain has no more cash to buy
U.S. arms
• 1941 Lend-Lease Act —U.S. to lend or lease supplies for defense

• Allied Powers
▫ U.S.
▫ U.S.S.R.
▫ Britain
▫ France
▫ China
▫ The Netherlands
▫ … and many others
• Axis Powers
▫ Germany
▫ Italy
▫ Japan
▫ … and many others

• The Attack on Pearl Harbor
• December 7, 1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor
• 2,403 Americans killed; 1,178 wounded
• Over 300 aircraft, 21 ships destroyed or damaged
• Kamikaze – suicide pilots

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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the Declaration of War against Japan,
December 8, 1941.

• What was the name of the party in control of Germany?
• What is a totalitarian dictatorship?
• What is an allegiance to one’s country called?
• What was each side called in the war?
• What do is the systematic extermination of a race called?
• Where was the U.S. attacked on December 7, 1941?
• What were the acts called to keep the U.S. out of war?

• You are a U.S. citizen on December 7,
1941…what is your reaction to the attack on
Pearl Harbor?
▫ Describe what happened.
▫ Describe how you felt.

• Selective Service and the GI
• After Pearl Harbor, 5 million men volunteer for military service
• 10 million more drafted to meet needs of two-front war
• European Theater
• Pacific Theater

• 300,000 Mexican Americans join armed forces
• 1 million African Americans serve; live, work in segregated units
• 13,000 Chinese Americans and 33,000 Japanese
Americans serve
• 25,000 Native Americans enlist
• Navaho language use as code in Pacific

• The Industrial Response
• Factories convert from civilian to war production
• Shipyards, defense plants expand, new ones built
• Produce ships, arms rapidly
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• Nearly 18 million workers in war industries;
6 million are women ( Rosie the Riveter )
• A. Philip Randolph , head of Brotherhood of
Sleeping Car Porters
▫ Organizes march on D.C. to protest minority discrimination in war effort; FDR executive order forbids discrimination

• Women’s Auxiliary Corps (WACS).
• Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency
Service (WAVES).

• War Production Board (WPB) says which companies convert production
• Rationing — fixed allotments of goods needed by military
• War bonds – Government borrows money from individual citizens to finance war efforts http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cf
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• Summarize the attitude of people on the home front!

• Hitler wants to capture Caucasus oil fields and destroy Stalingrad
• Soviets defeat Germans in bitter winter campaign
- Over 230,000 Germans, 1,100,000 Soviets die
• Battle a turning point : Soviet army begins to move towards Germany
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• The North African Front
• General Dwight D. Eisenhower commands invasion of North Africa
• Afrika Korps, led by General Erwin Rommel, surrenders May 1943
• The Italian Campaign
• Allies decide will accept only unconditional surrender from Axis
• Summer 1943, capture Sicily; Mussolini forced to resign

• Eisenhower directs Allied invasion of France at the beaches of Normandy from Britain
• Largest amphibious invasion of all-time
▫ 5000 vessel armada
▫ 150,ooo men
▫ 30,ooo vehicles
▫ 13,000 men dropped in by 800 planes
▫ 300 more planes dropped more than 13,000 bombs
▫ By nightfall on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, but more than 100,000 had made it ashore.

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• Battle of the Bulge ( 16 December 1944 – 25
January 1945) – last German offensive
▫ Fought in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany
▫ 800,000 men involved in Allied side
▫ Deadliest battle in WWII for U.S. with 19,000 KIA
• Allies liberate Nazi death camps
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• Unconditional Surrender
• April 1945, Soviet army storms Berlin; Hitler commits suicide
• Eisenhower accepts unconditional surrender of
German Reich
• May 8, 1945, V-E Day : Victory in Europe Day
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• FDR dies April 12; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes president
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• What are the two theaters of WWII?
• What were the names of African-American airmen that served in WWII?
• What were sold to the public to help fund the war?
• What was the Invasion of Normandy also called?
• What battle was a major turning point and first major Nazi defeat?
• What is rationing?

• Choose a person that you identify with during WWII
▫ Examples
 Tuskegee airman
 A soldier storming the beaches of Normandy
 A female working to build aircrafts and trying to support her family while her husband is away at war
• Write a letter to someone that you are close to explaining your thoughts on the war and how you feel about your role in the war
• Start out by writing “Dear, ________. I am writing this letter to tell you…”
• Your letter should be 1-2 paragraphs with at least 5 sentences per paragraph.
• Be CREATIVE!!!

June 5, 1944
Dear Mom,
I am writing this letter to tell you how scared I am.
We are one day away from the most ambitious military action in history. We are storming the beaches of Normandy and will encounter heavy Nazi resistance. I am scared to death and want to tell you how much I love you and Dad. Please pray for me and my comrades.
Love,
Ricky

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• The Battle of Midway
• Allies break Japanese code, win Battle of
Midway , stop Japan again – turning point
• Allies advance island by island to Japan
• Island hoping
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• Iwo Jima
• Iwo Jima critical as base from which planes can reach Japan
• 6,000 marines die taking island; of 20,700
Japanese, 200 survive

•
The Manhattan Project
▫
J. Robert Oppenheimer is research director of Manhattan
Project
▫
July 1945, atomic bomb tested in New Mexico desert (Los
Alamos)
• August 6, Hiroshima , major military center, destroyed by bomb
• 3 days later, bomb dropped on city of Nagasaki
• August 14, 1945 Japan surrenders (V-J Day)
• Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000 –166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 –80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring on the first day.

The explosion generated heat estimated at 7,000 °F and winds that were estimated at 624 mph.

• The night was hot, and it seemed even hotter because of the fires against the sky, but the younger of the two girls Mr. Tanimoto and the priests had rescued complained to Father
Kleinsorge that she was cold. He covered her with his jacket. She and her older sister had been in the salt water of the river for a couple of hours before being rescued. The younger one had huge, raw flash burns on her body; the salt water must have been excruciatingly painful to her. She began to shiver heavily, and again said it was cold. Father Kleinsorge borrowed a blanket from someone nearby and wrapped her up, but she shook more and more, and said again, "I am so cold," and then she suddenly stopped shivering and was dead.
Mr. Tanimoto found about twenty men and women in the sandpit. He drove the boat onto the bank and urged them to get aboard. They did not move and he realized that they were too weak to lift themselves. He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glovelike pieces. He was so sickened by this that he had to sit down for a moment. Then he got out into the water and, though a small man, lifted several of the men and women, who were naked, into his boat. Their backs and breasts were clammy, and he remembered uneasily what the great burns he had seen during the day had been like: yellow at first, then red and swollen, with the skin sloughed off, and finally, in the evening, suppurated and smelly. With the tide risen, his bamboo pole was now too short and he had to paddle most of the way across with it. On the other side, at a higher spit, he lifted the slimy living bodies out and carried them up the slope away from the tide. He had to keep consciously repeating to himself, "These are human beings."

• Stuff to think about…
▫ Estimate of American casualties for an invasion of
Japan were incredibly high
▫ Conventional bombing was killing many civilians because the technology at the time was not as accurate as today
▫ The Japanese had vowed not to surrender… mass suicides on islands

Why?
Why not?

• What was the name of the secret project to develop the bomb? Where was it tested?
• What two Japanese cities did the U.S. use the atomic bomb on?
• What day ended the war on all fronts?

• Hawaii governor forced to order internment
(confinement) of Japanese
• 1942 FDR signs removal of Japanese Americans in four states
• U.S. Army forces 110,000 Japanese Americans into prison camps http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?
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• February 1945, FDR, Churchill, Stalin meet in
Yalta
- discuss post-war world
• FDR, Churchill concession: temporarily divide
Germany into 4 parts
• Stalin promises free elections in Eastern Europe; will fight Japan
• FDR gets support for conference to establish
United Nations

• Nuremberg trials
—
24 Nazi leaders tried, sentenced
- charged with crimes against humanity, against the peace, war crimes
• Establish principle that people responsible for own actions in war

• MacArthur commands U.S. occupation forces in
Japan
• Over 1,100 Japanese tried, sentenced
• MacArthur reshapes Japan’s economy, government
▫ U.S. helps write Japanese Constitution that prohibits the Japanese from waging war

• Economic Gains
• Defense industries boom, unemployment falls to
1.2% in 1944
- average pay rises 10% during war
• Farmers prosper from rising crop prices, increase in production
- many pay off mortgages
• Percentage of women in work force rises to 35%

• Families adjust to fathers in military; mothers rear children alone
• Families must get to know each other again after fathers return
• Many couples rushed to marry before husband goes overseas
• 1944 GI Bill of Rights or Servicemen’s
Readjustment Act:
- pays education; loan guarantees for homes, new businesses

• Name the cities bombed in early August 1945.
• What was the major result of the Yalta
Conference?
• What was the air/sea battle that was a major turning point for the allied forces in the Pacific?
• What were the social and economic results of
WWII at home?

• Get together in groups of two
• Choose one issue:
▫ Use of Atomic bomb on Japan
▫ Japanese Internment
• Discuss the issue with your partner and decide whether your group is for/against the use of the bomb or Japanese internment
▫ Start by dividing a sheet of paper into two columns: Pro and con
▫ List reasons for and against your issue in the appropriate column
(5 min)
▫ Discuss and agree on whether you are for/against the action of the U.S. and why.
▫ Write down 2-3 main reasons why you arrived at your conclusion and then present them to the class