America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) Tindall/Shi
Chapter 28 -

I. From isolationism to interventionism o
A. The Good Neighbor Policy


1. Pan-American Conference of 1933
2. Platt Amendment, with its provisions allowing intervention in Cuba, abrogated in 1934

II. Foreign Crisis o
A. In East Asia

1. Japanese increasingly fell under the control of militarists o
B. In Europe

1. Italy
 a. Mussolini had wide appeal as the leader of Italy’s post-World War I Fascist movement
 b. Mussolini seized power in 1922 and wielded full dictatorial power by 1925

2. Germany
 a. Hitler and National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) party led Germany’s Fascist movement
 b. Hitler came to power in 1933 and assumed the title of FŸhrer by 1934 o
C. The Expanding Axis

1. Turmoil of 1934–1936
 a. Japan renounced Five-Power Treaty in 1934
 b. German occupation of Rhineland in 1935 violates Versailles Treaty

 c. Italy conquers Ethiopia in 1935 d. Spanish Civil War erupts in 1936

2. Spreading war clouds of 1936–1939
 a. Japan goes to war against China in 1937
 b. Italy, Germany, and Japan united with Anti-Comintern Pact, creating the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo “Axis“ by 1937
 c. Germany united with Austria in 1938
 d. Germany took Czechoslovakian Sudeten territory in 1938 after signing Munich agreement protecting rest of
Czechoslovakia
 e. Germany broke Munich pledge and conquered the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939
 f. Italy conquered Albania in 1939
 g. Germany (in coordination with the Soviet Union) invaded Poland in September 1939
 h. Britain and France declared war on Germany after invasion of Poland

III. American neutrality o
A. Increasing global turmoil initially strengthened U.S. isolationist sentiment o
B. Nye committee’s “merchants of death“ reflect the isolationist mood o
C. Neutrality Act of 1935

1. Forbade sale of arms or munitions to belligerents

2. Weakness of act became apparent when Italy conquered Ethiopia

3. Provisions added to forbid loans to warring nations in 1936 o
D. America and the Spanish Civil War

1. Roosevelt refused to intervene

2. Germany and Italy help Franco’s Fascist forces to victory by 1939

3. Neutrality laws subsequently extended to cover civil wars o
E. Neutrality Act of 1937

1. Maintained restraints on arms sales and loans

2. Added a cash-and-carry provision that allowed nations at war to carry U.S. goods from U.S. ports on their own ships

3. In Chinese–Japanese confrontation, Roosevelt did not invoke act to ensure China had access to the American munitions trade
 a. A step away from isolationism o
F. Panay incident

1. Japan bombed and sank an American gunboat in China in 1937

2. American animosity toward Japan increased

3. Isolationist sentiment still strong but starting to weaken o
G. United States moves away from neutrality against Germany after the occupation of Czechoslovakia

1. Roosevelt lobbied for public support to oppose the Fascist menace

2. Neutrality Act of 1939 favors Britain and France

3. Americans increasingly supportive of all measures short of war to stop Germany

IV. The storm in Europe o
A. Blitzkrieg (spring 1940)


1. Germany invades Denmark, Belgium, Norway, and the Netherlands
2. France falls to Germany by June o
B. American defense

1. Military build-up

2. Increased defense budget

3. National Defense Research Committee established to coordinate military research o
C. Battle of Britain in 1940

America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) Tindall/Shi
 1. Britain’s survival ended threat of German invasion o
D. Increasing American involvement
 1. United States gave fifty “overaged“ destroyers to Britain in return for leases on naval and air bases

2. First peacetime conscription enacted in September 1940

3. Continued debate in America between internationalists who supported aiding Britain and isolationists who opposed risking war to help Britain

V. The election of 1940 o
A. The candidates

1. Republicans chose Wendell Willkie

2. Democrats chose Roosevelt to run for an unprecedented third term o
B. The campaigns

1. Roosevelt presented himself as occupied with urgent defense and diplomatic matters, too busy to campaign

2. Willkie ultimately attacked FDR’s foreign policy as risking war, despite having supported Roosevelt’s foreign policies earlier

3. Roosevelt won third term

VI. The lend-lease bill, March 1941 o
A. Countries deemed essential to American defense—such as Britain—allowed to receive arms and other equipment, even if they could not pay o
B. Act bypassed the legal restrictions against extending loans to countries that defaulted on earlier U.S. loans o
C. Weakening isolationist opposition failed to prevent its passage

VII. The war’s spread in Europe o
A. Italy entered the war in June 1940 but struggled in campaigns against Greece and British-controlled Egypt o
B. German forces joined the Italians and by 1941 secured victories in Egypt, Greece, as well as Yugoslavia o
C. Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria also forced into the Axis fold o
D. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941

VIII. Increased American support for Britain o
A. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill sign the Atlantic Charter in August 1941

1. Called for self-determination and freedom of the seas, among other things o
B. Shooting incidents, some with fatalities, between American and German ships in the North Atlantic increased after September 1941 o
C. U.S. Navy began convoying merchant vessels to Iceland o
D. Congress repealed key restrictions of Neutrality Acts in November 1941

IX. The storm in the Pacific o
A. Japanese expansion and policies after 1940

1. Signed Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy in 1940

2. Nonaggression pact with Russia signed in 1941 o B. America’s reaction

1. Froze Japanese assets and restricted oil exports to Japan in summer of 1941

2. Organized the armed forces of the Philippines into the U.S. Army in summer 1941 o
C. The Japanese position

1. Japan was dependent on the United States for important supplies, including 80 percent of its fuel

2. Japanese-American negotiations to lift the oil restrictions and asset freeze stalled over U.S. insistence that Japan withdraw from Indochina and China first

3. The American oil embargo triggered plans to invade British and Dutch possessions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific to secure new oil supplies
 4. Attacks on U.S. possessions were included in the plans to ensure U.S. Navy could not threaten Japan’s access to its new supplies o
D. The United States enters World War II

1. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor

2. The same day, Japan attacked the Philippines, Guam, Midway, Hong Kong, and the Malay Peninsula

3. The United States declared war on Japan

4. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States

X. America’s early battles o
A. Setbacks in the Pacific

1. Territories captured by the Japanese in the Pacific

2. Surrender of the Philippines

3. Japanese strategy: push farther into the Pacific

4. American harassment
 a. Tokyo bombing o
B. Turning points in the Pacific

1. Battle of the Coral Sea, 1942
 a. Significant Japanese and American losses
 b. Japanese threat to Australia ended

2. Battle of Midway, 1942
 a. American cryptanalysts break Japanese code
 b. Japan loses its four best aircraft carriers

America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) Tindall/Shi

3. Significance of aircraft carriers

XI. Mobilization at home o
A. Mobilization of the armed forces o
B. Economic conversion

1. Agencies for mobilization
 a. War Powers Act
 b. War Production Board

2. Supplying strategic materials

3. Conservation
 a. Scrap metal collection
 b. Rationing o
C. Financing the war

1. Taxation
 a. Revenue Act of 1942
 b. Taxes pay about 45 percent of wartime expenditures o
D. Impact of the war on the economy

1. Overall scarcity of goods and imposition of economic controls

2. Improved standards of living compared to Depression era

3. Rise in wages

4. Price controls by Office of Price Administration

5. Wages and farm prices not controlled

6. Threat of inflation

7. Seizure of industries threatened by strikes

8. Measures were effective
 a. Prices rise only 31 percent by the end of the war
 b. Rise was more than 62 percent during World War I o
E. Domestic conservatism


1. Republicans make gains in 1942 elections
2. Many New Deal agencies cut or abolished

3. Actions against labor
 a. Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act
 b. Anti-union state legislation

XII. Social effects of the war o
A. Mobilization and the development of the West and South

1. Population boom

2. Demographic changes
 a. African American migration to the West

3. Economic growth o
B. Women

1. Nearly 200,000 women join the armed forces

2. Over 6 million women enter the civilian workforce

3. Changed attitudes toward gender roles o
C. African Americans

1. Push for equality, face resistance to desegregation


2. Blacks in armed forces—usually in segregated units
3. Blacks in war industries
 a. Threat of A. Philip Randolph’s march on Washington
 b. Executive order prohibits discrimination in companies with federal defense contracts
 c. Revived migration from the South

4. Racial violence
 a. Detroit race riot o
D. Mexicans and Mexican Americans

1. Mexican farmworkers and the bracero program

2. Ethnic tensions and violence in Los Angeles
 a. Zoot-suit riots o
E. Native Americans

1. Generally strong support for war

2. “Code talkers“ o
F. Japanese Americans
 1. Over 112,000 sent to “war relocation camps“
 a. Internees came from western states
 b. Japanese Americans seen as a threat because of their ancestry

2. Most Japanese Americans not disloyal
 a. Victims of war hysteria and racial prejudice

America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) Tindall/Shi

3. Federal compensation to internment survivors in 1983

XIII. Allied war strategy in Europe o
A. Decision to move against Germany first o
B. Aspects of the joint conduct of the war

1. Roosevelt-Churchill cooperation


2. Strategy a. Affirm the Atlantic Charter
 a. Americans want to strike directly across the English Channel
 b. British want to wait and build up forces, invade French North Africa instead
 c. Soviets need relief in the East o
C. The North Africa campaign, 1942–1943

1. Eisenhower’s landing

2. Germany defeated there o
D. Agreements at Casablanca, 1943

1. Cross-Channel invasion further postponed


2. Assault on Sicily and Italy to follow North Africa campaign
3. Increased bombing of Germany

4. Increased supply shipments to Soviet Union and China
 5. Agreement to end war only with enemies’ “unconditional surrender“ o
E. The Battle of the Atlantic through May 1943

1. Allied advantages
 a. Convoys and escorts
 b. Radar
 c. Decoding of German messages o
F. Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944

1. Invasion of Sicily, July 1943
 a. Sicily falls to Allies by August



2. Italians negotiate their surrender by September 1943
3. Germany pours in reinforcements to fight Allies in Italy
4. The battle for Rome
 a. Allies finally capture Rome, June 1944 o
G. The strategic bombing of Europe, 1943–1944

1. Anglo-American cooperation

2. Impact
 a. Widespread damage
 b. But bombing does not completely devastate German industrial production
 c. Bombing’s ability to hurt civilian morale is questionable
 d. Berlin hit very hard
 e. Allies control the air o
H. The Tehran meeting, 1943

1. Includes “Big Three“ leaders—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin

2. Decisions
 a. Planning for the D-day invasion and the Russian offensive
 b. Russia promises to enter war against Japan
 c. Commitment to creation of a postwar international peacekeeping organization (United Nations) o
I. D-day, 1944

1. Eisenhower in command of Operation Overlord

2. The invasion, June 1944
 a. Does not go as planned
 b. Unfavorable weather
 c. Extremely high Allied casualties

3. German reaction
 a. Fooled into thinking invasion would occur elsewhere
 b. Poor defense strategy authorized by Hitler
 c. Resistance to Hitler increasing among officers
 d. Allies have Paris by the end of August 1944
 e. German forces face calamity

4. Slowing momentum of the Allied drive on Germany
 a. Need for more planning and establishment of supply lines to sustain the drive

XIV. Leapfrogging to Tokyo, 1942–1944 o
A. Guadalcanal landing, 1942

1. Japanese had been strengthening their position on Guadalcanal to attack Allied transportation routes

2. First Marine division takes Guadalcanal in August o
B. Strategic planning

America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) Tindall/Shi

1. MacArthur wants to target Japanese positions in northern New Guinea
 a. Puts U.S. forces in position to move on Philippines, then Tokyo

2. Nimitz wants to sweep through Pacific islands of the central Pacific
 a. Heading toward Formosa (Taiwan) and China

3. Combined Chiefs of Staff agree to pursue both plans

4. Battle of the Bismarck Sea, March 1943
 a. Significant Japanese losses

5. Japanese naval commander Yamamoto killed in April 1943 o
C. Nimitz in the central Pacific

1. Advance targets Makin and Tarawa (in the Gilbert Islands), November 1943


2. Saipan (in the Marianas), June 1944

XV. The election of 1944 o
A. U.S. climate more politically conservative o
B. Republicans nominate Thomas E. Dewey, governor of New York o
C. Democrats name Truman for vice president who replaced the liberal incumbent Vice President Henry Wallace on the ticket o
D. Victory for Roosevelt

3. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 1944
 a. Largest naval engagement in history
 b. Part of effort to reclaim the Philippines from Japanese control
 c. Japanese defeated, lose their ability to defend the Philippines
XVI. Converging military fronts o
A. German counteroffensive

1. Battle of the Bulge, December 1944

2. Airpower critical in effort to push German troops back o
B. Allied moves against Germany

1. Occur against rising tensions among the Allies (the United States and Britain against the Soviet Union)

2. Allies reach the banks of the Rhine, March 1945

3. After reaching the Rhine, encircle the Ruhr Valley

4. Soviets push west through Warsaw in January 1945, reach Vienna by April 1945

XVII. The Yalta Conference, 1945 o
A. Convened to discuss the end of the war, the shape of the postwar world o B. Roosevelt’s goals

1. Ensure that Soviet Union join the war against Japan

2. United States must join postwar international security organization

3. Allies must preserve a united front against the German aggressors after the war o
C. Agree to divide occupation of Germany and Berlin among victorious Allied powers o
D. Soviet Union in position to dominate Eastern Europe

1. Soviet army occupies the region

2. Many of those countries lack strong democratic traditions

3. Russia wants a buffer zone between it and Germany o E. Yalta’s legacy

1. Soviet violations of the agreements

2. Secret agreements concerning the Far East
 a. Soviet control over Outer Mongolia
 b. Return of Kuril Islands and other rights and territory lost in Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905
 c. Necessary to ensure Soviets entered the war against Japan

XVIII. Collapse of Nazi Germany, 1945 o
A. Roosevelt dies just before the defeat of Germany o
B. Collapse of Germany

1. Mussolini and Hitler dead

2. Unconditional surrender o
C. Full extent of the Nazi Holocaust exposed

XIX. A grinding war against Japan o
A. Allied moves toward an invasion of Japan

1. The Philippines

2. Iwo Jima

3. Okinawa

America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) Tindall/Shi
 o
B. The atomic bomb

1. Development of the bomb: the Manhattan Project
 a. Two bombs available for use on Japan by mid-1945

2. Dropping the atomic bombs, August 1945
 a. Targets chosen among cities not already devastated by firebombing
 b. Potsdam Declaration threatens bombing if Japan does not surrender immediately
 c. Military considerations pertaining to fighting Japan and desire to avoid invasion paramount in dropping of first bomb on Hiroshima
 d. Concerns over Soviet entry into Pacific war significant in the dropping of the second bomb on Nagasaki

3. Devastation of the bomb
 a. Had been underestimated by scientists
 b. At Hiroshima: 78,000 dead at initial bombing with four square miles of the city destroyed and 70,000 buildings destroyed
 c. Hiroshima death toll increases to 140,000 by the end of 1945, due to effects of radiation burns and infection

4. Japanese surrender
XX. The final ledger o
A. Estimates of death and destruction

1. Between 50 and 60 million total military and civilian dead

2. Soviet Union suffered greatest losses of all o
B. Impact on America and the Soviet Union

1. Depression ends in the United States


2. Dramatic expansion of U.S. federal government and presidential authority
3. United States emerges from war with global, political, and military responsibilities and interests

4. United States emerges as the strongest nation on earth in economic and military terms

5. Despites its losses, Soviet Union emerges from the war with new territory and enhanced influence
 a. Soviets become the strongest power in Europe and Asia