America in World War II

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America in World War II

• 1941-1945

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The United States decided to fight Germany before
Japan
The U.S. could not risk the fall of Britain
America would battle Japan just enough to keep
them in check
After Pearl Harbor the U.S. had to mobilize
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Internment Camps
Feb. 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 9066
110,000 Japanese-Americans were taken from their
homes and forced into relocated camps
Lost hundreds of millions of dollars in property
and earnings
Korematsu v. Supreme Court
Upheld Japanese internment
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U.S. War Industry
By 1942 over 100 billion in military orders
War Production Board est. 1942
By Executive Order
Direct war production and the procurement of
materials
Over 185 billion in weapons and supplies
300,000 aircraft, 76,000 ships,
86,000 tanks, 2.6 million machine guns, 40
billion bullets, 713, 717 propellers
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Production of passenger cars is stopped
Imposed national speed limit and gasoline
rationing
Inflation
Full employment, scarce consumer goods
Rationing
Wage ceiling
Smith - Connally Anti-Strike Act
June 1943
Federal government could seize and run businesses
Temporarily took over coal mines and railroads
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Manpower and Womanpower
Enlisted nearly 15 million men during World War
II GIs (General Issue)
216,000 women WAACS (Army) and WAVES (Navy)
Exempted certain people in industry and
agriculture
Braceros Mexican agricultural workers brought
to America
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Rosie the Riveter
6 million women entered the workforce
300,000 daycare centers were set up by the
government
2/3 of the women left the workforce after the war
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American Migration during Wartime
War industries pulled people into boomtowns
Californias population grew by 2 million
FDR appropriated money to the South
Cause the booming of the Sunbelt
1.6 million black people left the South
Caused tension over housing, employment, and
segregated facilities in the North
In the 30 years after the war 5 million black
tenant farmers and sharecroppers left the South
Mechanical Cotton Picker - 1944
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Fair Employment Practices Commission
Discourage racism and oppression in the workplace
American Indians left reservations
About 25,000 American Indians were in the army
Code Talkers
Navajo and Comanches
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Home Front
GNP in 1940 Less than 100 billion
GNP in 1945 More than 200 billion
Corporate profits from 6 billion to 12 billion
Disposable personal income doubled
Millions of Americans worked for the government
Hundreds of millions of pumped into
university-based research
Wartime bill amounted to 330 billion
Twice as much as all previous federal spending
since 1776
National Debt
1941 - 49 billion
1945 - 259 billion
At one point the war was costing 10 million /
hour
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Propaganda Posters
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The Four Freedoms
We look forward to a world founded upon four
essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of
speech and expression--everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship
God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The
third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in
the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . .
anywhere in the world.
Paintings by Norman Rockwell
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Posters by Theodor Seuss Geisel
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North Africa
The Soviets urged the Allies to open a second
front against the Germans
The Soviets were fighting the Germans and wanted
relief
The British decided to invade Europe through
North Africa
Germans were led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel
Afrika Korps
Desert Fox
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Allies in Africa were led by Dwight D. Eisenhower
Germans were driven out of Africa
Casablanca Conference
Roosevelt and Churchill meet
Agree on the term unconditional surrender
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Fighting in Italy
The Allies faced bitter resistance
Sicily fell in August 1943
The Allies finally took Rome on June 4, 1944
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The invasion of Italy
Opened up Europe
Diverted some of Hitlers men away from the
Soviet Union
Helped free Italy
Tehran Conference
The Big Three meet
FDR, Churchill, and Stalin
Agreed that the Allies would launch simultaneous
attacks against Germany
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D-Day Invasion
Cross-Channel invasion
England to beaches of Normandy, France
Omaha U.S. 1st Army
Utah U.S. 4th Infantry Division
Gold British 2nd Army
Sword British 3rd Infantry Division
Juno Canadian 3rd Infantry and British 50th
Infantry Division
82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were dropped
behind Utah Beach to secure four causeways
Americans on Omaha Beach suffered 60 of all
casualties on D-Day
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June 6, 1944
2,727 ships sailed for the Normandy coast
156,000 men were landed on a front 30 miles wide
Largest armada that has ever sailed
The Allied invasion was faced by 50 divisions of
the German Army under Field Marshal Rommel
6 parachute regiments over 13,000 men were
flown from 9 British airfields in over 800 planes
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More than 300 planes dropped 13,000 bombs over
coastal Normandy
By nightfall on June 6 more than 9,000 Allied
soldiers were dead or wounded
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More than 100,000 Allied troops made it ashore
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Election of 1944
Republican
Democrat
Thomas Dewey
Franklin Roosevelt
4th term
Gov. of New York
42 years old
VP Henry Wallace was removed from the ticket
Time for a change after 12 years of New Dealism
VP Harry Truman
Electoral College
FDR - 432
Dewey - 99
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The End of Nazi Germany
By 1944 the Soviets had pushed into eastern
Germany
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Allied aerial attacks continued almost around the
clock
U.S. Daylight raids
U.K. Nighttime raids
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Battle of the Bulge
Begins Dec. 16, 1944
Last German offensive in the West
The largest land battle of World War II in which
the U.S. participated
Ardennes Forest
Shrouded in fog and snow
More than 1 million men fought in the battle
500,000 Americans
55,000 British
600,000 Germans
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Americans were driven back creating a bulge in
the line
Malmeddy 140 Americans taken prisoner, 86 were
shot and killed
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American 101st Airborne held the town of Bastogne
Germans that besieged the city demanded the
Americans surrender
General McAuliffes response was nuts
General Pattons 3rd Army attacked the Germans
surrounding Bastogne and defeated them
Hitlers last ditch attempt to win the war had
failed
January 28, 1945 the Battle of the Bulge had ended
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The Soviets took Berlin in April 1945
Hitler committed suicide in his underground
bunker on April 30, 1945
May 7, 1945 What was left of the German
government surrendered unconditionally
May 8 was officially proclaimed V-E Day Victory
in Europe Day
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Holocaust
German Nazis engaged in the mass murder of
undesirables
Jews, Roma (gypsies), Slavic people (Poles,
Russians, and others), the handicapped
Other groups were persecuted on political and
behavioral grounds Communists, Socialists,
Jehovahs Witnesses, and homosexuals
Between 1942 and 1944 Nazis deported millions of
Jews and others from the occupied territories to
extermination camps
Auschwitz, Birkenau, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor,
Dachau
6 million Jews along with 6 million others were
murdered
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage
Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12, 1945
Vice president Harry Truman became President of
the United States
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War Against Japan
Americans surrender to Japanese in the Philippines
Largest U.S. army ever to surrender
Bataan Death March
700 Americans died along with 10,000 Filipinos
500 more Americans died in POW camps
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Doolittles Raid
16 B-25 bombers
USS Hornet
Fly over 600 miles to bomb Tokyo
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Battle of Midway
June 3 6, 1942
Japan attempts to seize Midway Islands
1,000 miles NW of Hawaii
American code breakers figured out Yamamotos
plans
By the middle of May the U.S. knew his target,
order of battle, and his schedule
Japanese planes from 4 aircraft carriers attacked
Midway
Dive bombers from the USS Enterprise and USS
Yorktown attacked 3 of the 4 Japanese carriers
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Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu (Japanese Carriers) were
ablaze and out of action
7 planes from the Hiryu bombed the Yorktown and
disabled her
U.S. carrier planes located the Hiryu and sank it
The Yorktown was sunk by a Japanese submarine
From June 1942 to the end of the war three years
later America was on the offensive in the Pacific
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Island Hopping
Guadalcanal
August 7, 1942 - March 6, 1943
U.S. losses 1,700
Japanese losses 20,000
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Iwo Jima
Feb. 19 March 16, 1945
The Japanese built 800 pillboxes and over 3 miles
of tunnels on an island that is only 8 square
miles
Approximately 60,000 Americans v. 20,000 Japanese
U.S. 23,000 casualties
27 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded
More than any other battle in U.S. history
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Flag raising on Mt. Suribachi
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Okinawa
April 1 July 2, 1945
Largest amphibious invasion of the War in the
Pacific
Last major campaign of the Pacific War
12,000 Americans killed - 38,000 Americans
wounded
More than 107,000 Japanese killed
As many as 100,000 Okinawan civilians perished in
the battle
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Raid on Tokyo
March 9-10, 1945
Incendiary bombs
Killed almost 100,000 Japanese
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Potsdam Conference
Allies issue an ultimatum to the Japanese
Surrender or be destroyed
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Atomic Age
Manhattan Project
Experiments began in a small lab at the
University of Chicago
1st controlled nuclear reaction
Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer
directed research at Los Alamos
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Hiroshima
Little Boy
Dropped from the B-29 Enola Gay
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August 6, 1945 at 815 am
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It is believed that more than 140,000 people
The total number of people who have died due to
the bomb is estimated to be 200,000
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Nagasaki
August 9, 1945
Fat Man
It is estimated that approximately 70,000 people
died by the end of the year
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The War Ends
Japan sued for peace on August 10, 1945
One condition Hirohito to remain as nominal
Emperor
Official surrender on September 2, 1945
Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay
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V-J Day