Chapter 18
America in
World War II
Section 1
Early Difficulties
Strengths and Weaknesses
 By the time the U.S. entered the war the Axis powers
already had a strong control over the areas they had
invaded.
 Also the Germans and the Japanese were strongly
prepared for war. Both countries had been rearming
and building military facilities for quite some time
 But… the Axis troops were spread out all over the
country stretching from France to the Soviet Union
 They had not yet defeated the British or the Soviets.
 And the Allied powers hoped that the size of the Soviet
army and the production abilities of the U.S. would be
enough to win the war
 All the European Allied Powers had to do was hold
long enough for reinforcements to arrive
French soldiers in
A Production Boom
 The massive production of wartime materials created
hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans
 {This massive increase of productivity and jobs
caused the economy to skyrocket and brought the
U.S. out of the Depression}
 {American farmers also prospered because they
provided food for not only the U.S., but for the Allied
Powers overseas as most of their crops were
destroyed because of the war}
 Approximately 10% of all the food produced in the
U.S. was sent overseas to the Soviet Union and Great
Britain
Government Expansion
 In order to fight the Axis Powers, the U.S. needed to
focus all its efforts on war time production.
 In 1942, Roosevelt created the War Production Board
to increase military production and to oversee the
conversion of existing factories to wartime factories
 In 1943 the {Office of War Mobilization was created
to coordinate all the newly created governmental
agencies that were involved in the war effort
 In addition, the OWM diverted the production of
certain products into the production of war
materials (ex. Making nylon for parachutes instead of
stockings)
 It also controlled the clothing styles in order to
save fabric. Cuffs on men’s pants and pleats on
women’s skirts were no longer made}
Directing the Economy
 In order {to pay for the war, the government raised
taxes.}
 The new taxes mainly affected the middle and lower
classes
 {The government raised the rest of the money
through borrowing, and through war bonds}
 The Office of Price Administration was created to help
avoid inflation by setting max. prices on goods and by
rationing scarce items like gasoline, tires, coffee,
sugar, meat and butter
 The government also put a freeze on wages. The only
way wages would go up is if there was an increase in
the cost of living.
Raising an Army
 In 1940 the U.S. called the National Guard to active duty and
passed the {Selective Training and Service Act, which
required all men ages 21 to 35 (later changed to 18 to 45) to
register
 The Act was the first time a peace time draft was ever
conducted}
 The existing American military forces made up only about 5% of
the 12 million trained soldiers needed to win the war.
 {About 2/3 of the Americans that fought in the war were
draftees} and the rest were volunteers
 This included almost 300,000 women that were a part of the
Women’s Auxiliary Corps, the Women Airforce Service Pilots
and select branches of the navy, coast guard and marines.
They worked as nurses, drove vehicles and ferried planes
War in the Pacific
 Japanese assaults continued in the Pacific
 On December 8, 1941, Japanese planes bombed Clark Air
Force Base in the Philippines and over the nest two weeks
Japan attacked numerous cities all over the Pacific
 More than 30,000 U.S. and 110,000 Filipino troops led by
General Douglas MacArthur, defended the Philippines.
 Out-gunned, out-numbered and not having enough food,
MacArthur’s forces were forced to fall back to the Bataan
Peninsula and then again to Australia.
 {Those 70,000 soldiers that stayed on Bataan surrendered in
April 1942 and had to travel through the jungle on their way to a
prison camp
 The journey became known as the Bataan Death March
because the U.S. and Filipino soldiers were treated badly by
the Japanese}
^ General Douglas MacArthur
The Bataan Death March >
Halting the Japanese Advance
 On May 7, 1942, the Japanese were on their way to attack New
Guinea
 Before they could reach their destination, a U.S./British naval
force intercepted them and stopped the advancement
 This was called the {Battle of the Coral Sea it was important
because it stopped Japanese advancement to Australia}
 In June 1942, in the Battle of Midway, the Japanese planned to
take the island of Midway northwest of Hawaii.
 The U.S. intercepted and cracked the Japanese code that gave
the orders for the attack and commander of the Pacific Fleet,
Admiral Chester Nimitz, had an ambush waiting for the
Japanese
 After three days of intense battle the U.S. claimed victory
 After the battle of Midway the U.S. launched its first offensive at
Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands after 6 months of battle the
U.S. prevailed.
On board the USS Yorktown after
she was hit by dive bombers in the
Battle of Midway
Early Fighting in Europe and the
Mediterranean
 In Europe at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bulgaria,
Hungary and Romania had joined the Axis Powers and had
control of southern Europe
 German U-boats patrolling the Atlantic nearly cut off all supplies
to Britain by sinking more than 500 ships off the U.S. East
Coast
 In 1940, Italy launched an attack on north Africa
 When the British began beating back Italian forces, Hitler sent
in his German Afrika Korps led by commander Erwin Rommel
(AKA the Desert Fox) who was able to advance all the way to El
Alamein, Egypt
 Rommel was an exceptional military mind but he was short on
men and supplies
 British general Bernard Montgomery was able to push
Rommel’s forces out of Egypt and into Lybia
The Blue represents the Axis Powers
The Red represents the Allied Powers
The Desert Fox
This map shows the Axis powers trying to
advance eastward through Egypt. The
Allied powers set up a blockade just west
of El Alamein and forced them to retreat
back westward to Lybia
Stalingrad
 After their initial attack on the Soviet Union in June
1941, the Germans advanced far into the country
 As they advanced they captured many industrial
canters and rich grain fields
 By that winter, German forces were closing in on
Moscow and were successful in capturing Leningrad
 In the summer of 1942 German troops approached the
city of Stalingrad and by that fall the troops were
fighting over the city
 The Soviets refused to surrender and eventually were
able to surround the German soldiers
 {Trapped in the ruined city of Stalingrad, the
Germans, due to the freezing conditions, scarcity of
food and dwindling supplies, surrendered in late
January 1943}