WORLD WAR II:
Militarism develops Worldwide:
Totalitarianism: The individual was nothing; the state was everything.
Russia - Joseph Stalin
Italy - Fascist Benito Mussolini
Germany - Adolf Hitler
Rome - Berlin Axis
Japan - Emperor Hirohito
Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in 1935.
Germany Begins Aggression:
1. Compulsory military service in Germany.
2. Germany marched into the demilitarized German Rhineland.
He whipped the new German Air Force and mechanized ground divisions
into the most devastating military machine.
3. In March 1938, Hitler bloodlessly occupied German-speaking Austria.
4. In 1938 he demanded the German-inhabited Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.
Britain and France practice a policy of appeasement.
5. March 1939 Hitler erased the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Russia now signed, on August 23, 1939 a non-aggression treaty with the Germans.
6. Hitler now demanded from Poland a return of the areas taken after W.W.I. He
crashed into Poland at dawn on September 1, 1939.
Britain and France, honoring their commitments to Poland, promptly declared war.
World Reaction toward Germany:
President Roosevelt speedily issued the routine proclamations of Neutrality.
Ill-prepared Britain and France urgently needed American airplanes and other weapons.
European nations might buy American war materials, but only on a “cash and carry”
basis.
The Soviets now attacked Finland.
The U.S. granted $30 million to Finland, but she was still flattened by the Russians.
April 1940 - Hitler overran Denmark and Norway.
The next month he attacked Holland and Belgium, followed by a paralyzing blow to
France.
France’s sudden collapse shocked Americans out of their daydreams. Britons were all
that stood between Hitler and the end in Europe of constitutional governments.
Roosevelt called for huge airfleets and a two-ocean navy.
Congress appropriated $37 billion.
Conscription was approved September 6, 1940 - the first peacetime draft in
American history.
1.2 million troops and 800,000 reserves were to be trained each year.
Bolstering Britain with the Destroyer Deal (1940)
Roosevelt transferred to Great Britain 50 old-model, four-funnel destroyers left
over from W.W.I.
Britain handed over to the U.S. eight valuable defensive base sites on a 99 year lease.
Election of 1940:
Democrats re-nominate Roosevelt - who shattered the two-term tradition.
Republicans nominated Wendell L. Willkie.
He was a complete novice in politics, and his appeal lay in his personality.
Roosevelt said, “In so grave a crisis he owed his experienced hand to the service
of his country and humanity.”
“Better a Third Term than a Third - Rater”.
Roosevelt won in the electoral count 449 to 82.
One should not change horses in the middle of a stream.
The Lend-Lease Law:
By late 1940 Britain was nearing the end of their finances.
Roosevelt proposed lending or leasing American arms to the democracies.
Isolationists retorted that lending arms was like lending chewing gum: “You
don’t want it back.”
Roosevelt said it would keep the nation out of war.
“Send guns, not sons” or “Billions, not bodies.”
America would be the “arsenal of democracy”.
Lend – Lease was finally approved in March 1941.
Hitler Attacks Russia:
Hitler decided to crush his co-conspirator - he assumed it would be over in a few weeks.
June 22, 1941, he launched an attack on his Soviet neighbor.
Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor:
Washington, late in 1940, imposed embargoes on Japan-bound supplies.
Mid-1941 the U.S. “froze” all Japanese assets in the U.S. and ceased all shipments of
gasoline and other articles of war.
On December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor without warning on
“Black Sunday.” “A day which will live in infamy.”
The battleship fleet was virtually wiped out.
Fortunately the three priceless aircraft carriers were outside the harbor.
December 11, 1941, Congress declares war on Japan, Germany, and Italy.
Washington, cooperating with the British, adopted the strategy of “Getting Hitler First.”
Meanwhile enough American strength would be sent to the Pacific to prevent the
Japanese from digging in too deeply.
American “Relocation” Camps:
About 110,000 Japanese-Americans were concentrated on the Pacific Coast.
Washington feared they might act as saboteurs and herded them into “relocation
camps.” About 2/3 of them were American born citizens.
Nisei - American born citizens
Issei - Japanese immigrant
The All Nisei 442 Regimental Combat Team was the most decorated Regiment in
the annals of the American Army.
Blacks Position During the War:
Less discriminated against in W.W.II than in W.W.I, but still they were generally
assigned to service branches rather than combat units.
Thousands of black civilians migrated from the South to the North and West to work in
war industries.
Roosevelt issued an executive order forbidding discrimination in defense industries.
In 1943 vicious race riots erupted in Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit.
Rationing of goods was instituted during W.W.II. “Hooverizing” on a voluntary
basis would not work this time.
Labor’s Part in the War Effort:
The A.F. of L. and the C.I.O. joined in no-strike pledges, with the understanding
that the government would hold the lid on the cost of living.
Congress passed in June 1943 the Smith – Connally Anti-Strike Act making
striking against any industry a criminal offense.
Farmers produced bumper crops.
Shipbuilding was pressed at a frantic pace in an effort to out race the deadly submarine.
One of Henry J. Kaiser’s ships was assembled within 5 days.
The war cost a quarter of a billion dollars a day.
The Rising Sun in the Pacific:
Early Japanese successes were breathtaking: They had to win quickly or loose slowly.
April 9, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur withdrew from the Philippines to Australia.
“I shall return.”
For the Pacific the U.S. employed a new strategy of island hopping = (“Leapfrogging”).
This bypassed some of the most heavily fortified Japanese posts, capturing nearby
islands, setting up airfields on them, and then neutralizing the enemy bases through
heavy bombing.
Especially prized islands were the Marianas. They were close enough to Japan to
permit round-trip bombing.
The Allied Halting of Hitler:
The Germans under Marshal Rommel – “The Desert Fox” – had driven across
North Africa into Egypt.
October 1942, the British General Montgomery drove the enemy back.
In September 1942 the Russians halted the German steamroller at Stalingrad.
November 1942 the Russians unleashed a counteroffensive, which was never
seriously reversed.
The Rough Road to Rome:
January 1943, President Roosevelt and Churchill attack Italy and demand
“Unconditional Surrender.”
Italy surrendered in September 1943.
Two years later Mussolini and his mistress were lynched by his own people.
Italy dropped out of the war…but Germany did not drop out of Italy.
Italy declared War on Germany in October 1943.
Axis troops in Italy lay down their arms only 5 days before Germany’s surrender.
Eisenhower’s D-Day Invasion of France:
Preparations for the cross-channel invasion of France were gigantic.
The U.S. was to provide most of the troops – so command was given to Eisenhower.
June 6, 1944 – D-Day.
4,600 vessels attacked France’s coast of Normandy.
General George S. (Blood ‘n’ Guts) Patton’s armored division made spectacular lunges
across France.
Paris was liberated in August 1944.
The Election of 1944 – Roosevelt the Fourth Termer:
Republicans nominated Thomas E. Dewey – Governor of New York.
Democrats nominate Roosevelt. Due to his age unusual attention was focused on
the Vice-Presidency - Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri.
Roosevelt won 432 to Dewey’s 99 in the Electoral College.
The Last Days of Hitler:
December 16, 1944 – The Battle of the Bulge. Hitlers throws his reserves at the thinly
held American lines.
Americans now walked into Germany and were horrified to find blood-bespattered and
still stinking concentration camps, where the German Nazis had engaged in scientific
mass murder of “undesirables”, including 6 million Jews.
April 30, 1945 Hitler, after a hasty marriage to his mistress, they committed suicide in
an underground bunker.
April 12, 1945 - President Roosevelt died from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.
May 7, 1945 – The German government surrendered unconditionally.
V –E Day – Victory in Europe Day.
Japan Dies Hard:
American submarines destroyed about 50% of Japan’s merchant fleet.
Giant bomber attacks were reducing Japanese cities to cinders.
March 9-10, the fire-bombs on Tokyo killed an estimated 83,000.
October 20, 944 General MacArthur splashed ashore in the Philippines.
The re-taking of the Philippines would cost over 60,000 American lives.
The American Navy sustained severe damage from Japanese Kamakazi pilots.
They crashed their bomb-laden planes into the decks of the invading fleet.
Atomic War:
Strategists in Washington were planning an all-out invasion of the main islands of
Japan. This would cost hundreds of thousands of American and Japanese casualties.
$4 billion for the creation of an atomic weapon.
Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945 – detonated the first atomic device.
August 6, 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped on the military-based city of
Hiroshima, Japan (180,000 dead).
August 8 - Stalin entered the war against Japan.
August 9 - A second atomic bomb is dropped on naval-based Nagasaki. (80,000)
August 10, 1945 – Tokyo sued for peace on one condition: That Hirohito, the Son
of Heaven, be allowed to remain on his ancestral throne as nominal Emperor.
September 2, 1945 – Official surrender ceremonies take place.
V – J Day - Victory in Japan Day.
The Allies Triumphant:
1 million casualties for the U.S. alone. About 1/3 of which were deaths.
The U.S. was fortunate in emerging with its mainland virtually unscathed.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - The Man Biography on-line
Franklin Roosevelt was the only President to serve more than two terms.
Truman – the “Gutty” Man from Missouri:
Truman was “the average man’s average man”.
He was hot tempered and permitted designing old associates of the “Missouri Gang”
to gather around him.
The United Nations:
April 25, 1945 – Delegates from nearly 50 nations assembled the United Nations
Charter.
Two Bodies: Security Council – dominated by the Big Five Powers.
The Assembly – controlled by the smaller countries.
A new International Court of Justice was established.
The U.N. would ultimately make it’s permanent home in New York City.
Millions of ex-service men and women took advantage of the educational benefits
Provided by Congress in the G.I. Bill of Rights.
Reconstruction of Europe:
At the close of the war America, rich and unscared, had a moral obligation to help her
less fortunate sisters.
“It is now 11:59 on the clock of starvation”, warned Herbert Hoover.
The U.S. could not allow the ravaged peoples of Europe fall prey to Communism.
Displaced persons numbered several million. Many were anti-Communist and did
not dare go home.
Russian Roadblocks to Peace:
Germany and Austria were arbitrarily broken into 4 military zones:
France - Britain - United States - Russia.
Reconstruction of Japan fell to only one power – the U.S. under Mac Arthur.
The vanquished Japanese cooperated with their conqueror to an astonishing degree.
The U.S. poured $1 million a day into Japan during the reconstruction.
The Cold War Emerges: The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan:
Russia clanged down an “iron curtain” across central Europe.
Nations like Poland and Hungary virtually disappeared from western sight.
1947 the Truman Doctrine: America should attempt to halt or “contain” Communist
aggression wherever it threatened free peoples.
Marshall Plan: Spend $12.5 billion over 4 years in 16 cooperating countries.
Truman’s Marshall Plan on the whole proved to be a spectacular success.
Both America and Europe were spared another great depression.