Chapter 35: America in WWII
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After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, politicians
"getting Germany first“
◦ Help the Soviet Union and Britain so they would
help us later.
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Japanese Internment
◦ Supreme court case: Korematsu vs. U.S. (1944)
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End of New Deal Reform Era
◦ End of CCC, WPA, NYA
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War Production Board (WPB)
◦ Produced weaponry (guns and planes)
◦ Halted car production
◦ rationing of gasoline
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Office of Price Administration (OPA)
◦ Regulated increased prices brought on by boom
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War Labor Board (WLB)
◦ Imposed ceilings on wage increases
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Braceros – Mexicans brought in by the
thousands to work in agriculture
Native Americans served in the armed forces.
◦ Comanches in Europe and Navajos in the Pacific
made such valuable contributions as code talkers
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Women
◦ 216,000 employed by armed forces
◦ At the height of the war, there were 19,170,000
women in the labor force.
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1.6 million blacks left for the West and
North.
A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a massive
"Negro March on Washington" in 1941
Fair Employment Practices Commission
(FEPC) forbid discrimination in defense
industries.
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Attacked the American outposts of Guam,
Wake, and the Philippines.
In the Philippines, American forces, led by
General MacArthur, surrendered on April 9,
1942.
◦ The island fortress of Corregidor held out until it
surrendered on May 6, 1942, giving the Japanese
complete control of the Philippines.
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May 1942
Japanese v. U.S and Australia
First action with aircraft carriers
Japanese tactical victory but stopped
Japanese expansion
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June 4th, 1942
Most important Pacific campaign
Japan planned to lure US into trap
◦ Codebreakers determined details of plan
◦ U.S. set up own ambush
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Heavy loses weakened Japanese Navy
American navy far superior
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The U.S. Navy strategy in the Japanese-held
islands in the Pacific.
◦ The strategy dictated that the American forces,
would reduce the fortified Japanese outposts.
◦ Set up airfields and then neutralizing the enemy
bases through heavy bombing.
◦ The outposts would then die due to lack of
essential supplies from the homeland. .
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Hitler had entered the war with U-Boats.
◦ Allies used old techniques, such as dropping depth
bombs from destroyers.
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The turning point - 1942.
◦ Battle of El Alamein: drove the Germans all the way
back to Tunisia. (North Africa)
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In September 1942, the Soviets repelled
Hitler's attack on Stalingrad, capturing
thousands of German soldiers.
◦ (The turning point in the war in the Soviet Union.)
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Allied forces captured Sicily in August 1943.
In September 1943, Italy surrendered
unconditionally and Mussolini was
overthrown.
Germans would not let the Allies take control
of Italy.
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Teheran Conference (Churchill + Roosevelt)
◦ agreement on broad plans, especially those for
launching Soviet attacks on Germany from the east
simultaneously with the Allied assault from the
west.
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General Eisenhower was given command.
French Normandy was chosen for the point
for invasion
◦ less heavily defended than other parts of the
European coast.
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On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the enormous
operation took place.
After desperate fighting, the Allies finally
broke out of the German ring that enclosed
the beach.
General George S. Patton led armored
divisions across France extremely fast and
efficiently.
Paris was liberated in August 1944.
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On December 16, 1944, Hitler threw all of his
forces against the thinly held American lines
in the Ardennes Forest.
◦ The Americans were driven back, creating a deep
"bulge" in the Allied line.
◦ halted by the 101st Airborne Division (Battle of the
Bulge.)
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The Soviets reached and captured Berlin in
April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on April
30, 1945.
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In April 1945, General Eisenhower's troops
reached the Elbe River, finding the
concentration camps where the Nazis had
murdered over 6 million Jews. Not until the
war's end did all of the atrocities of the
"Holocaust" appear.
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The Soviets reached and captured Berlin in
April 1945. Hitler committed suicide on April
30, 1945.
On April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died
suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. Harry S
Truman took over the presidency.
On May 7, 1945, the German government
surrendered unconditionally.
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Strategic point in Pacific
took US America over one month to take.
The Marines lost 6,891 men killed and
18,070 wounded.
Out of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the
island, only 212 were taken prisoners.
What the battle did show the Americans was
how far the Japanese would go to defend
their country – a decision that was to
influence the use of the atomic bombs in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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The Potsdam conference near Berlin in 1945
sounded the death of the Japanese.
◦ Truman and Stalin
◦ Ultimatum to Japan: surrender or be destroyed.
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On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was
With the Japanese still refusing to surrender,
the “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima on
August 6, 1945.
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Hiroshima
◦ 70,000 initially dead
◦ 5 year death toll:200,000
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Nagasaki
◦ 40,000 initially dead
◦ 140,000 within 5 years
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On August 8, Stalin invaded the Japanese
defenses of Manchuria and Korea.
After the Japanese still refused to surrender,
“Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki on
August 9.
On August 10, 1945, Tokyo surrendered
under the condition that Hirohito be allowed
to remain the emperor.
The Allies accepted this condition on August
14, 1945. The formal end to the war came
on September 2, 1945.
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American forces suffered some 1 million
casualties in WWII, while the Soviet Union
suffered nearly 20 million.
After the war, much of the world was
destroyed while America was virtually left
untouched.
The nation was better prepared for the war
than any other nation because it had begun
to prepare about a year and a half before the
war officially began.