Download CHAPTER 34: The Origins of World War II

Chapter 35:
America in World War II
Women and World War II
(“Rosie the Riveter”)
• New opportunities because of
the demand for workers
• Still faced hostility in maledominated businesses
• Were expected to complete
their “domestic” duties
• WAC (Women’s Army Corps)
• WAVES (Women Accepted
for Volunteer Emergency
Service – Navy)
Organizing the American Economy for War
• The War Production Board
– The goal: make America the “arsenal of democracy”
with conversions of industry
• Automakers would now make airplanes and tanks
• Other workers would retrain workers for wartime tasks
• G.D.P. (gross domestic product) rises rapidly
• The National War Labor Board manages union
leaders and business owners to settle disputes
• Government spending rises to new levels
– Taxes account for 45% (“withholding” is introduced)
– War bonds help in financing the war
• Office of Price Administration controls prices
thereby controlling inflation (too many $ chasing
too few goods)
The Internment of Japanese-Americans
• Were they loyal? Sabotage? Did their spies cause Pearl
Harbor?
• “Enemy Aliens” (Germans, Italians, Japanese) had to
register with the
government and carry
identification
• The Japanese-Americans did
not have political power and
were potentially
more easily recognized
• Executive Order 9066
(February 1942) goes into
effect and even native
born Japanese-Americans
are sent to internment
camps inland
• Korematsu v. US
– Fred Korematsu was a
native born citizen who
disobeyed the law and
appealed it all the way
to the Supreme Court
– The Court upheld the decision on the
grounds that a group’s civil rights can
be set aside in time of war
• 100,000 were forced to relocate
into guarded “barracks”
• 442nd Regimental Combat team
was an all-Japanese unit
African-Americans and WWII
• The Double V Campaign: Victory for
democracy at home and abroad
• Black G.I.’s were segregated and were
not permitted in combat (at first)
• Tuskegee Airmen
• there were many people who thought
that black men lacked intelligence, skill,
courage and patriotism.
• Bomber escorts and direct combat
• The only fighter group to never
lose a bomber to enemy planes
African-Americans and WWII
• At the same time Executive Order 9066 inters
Japanese-Americans, Executive Order 8802
outlaws discrimination against African-Americans
in the defense industry
• A.Philip Randolph had threatened a march on
Washington if black civil rights were not protected
• The Great Migration continued to northern
industrial cities
– Blacks may have escaped the South but not racism
– The National Urban League fought for equal
opportunities in housing and employment
– The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) confronted
discrimination with nonviolent resistance
Jewish Americans and WWII
• Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany began in
1933 as soon as Hitler rose to power
• The 1924 National Origins Act restricted
immigration (remember the nativism and lack of
tolerance during the 1920’s?)
• Anti-Semitism led to a lack of support for
European Jews
• The War Refugee Board was created in 1944 to
finally help Jewish refugees
Mexican Americans and WWII
• Discrimination had barred many Mexicans from better
jobs in the United States
• During the war, laborers were needed
– The bracero program allowed short term work contracts to
be filled by Mexicans in the farms and on the railroads
• June 1943: Zoot Suit Riots
– Zoot suits were associated with
Mexican teenagers (pachucos)
and gangs who roamed barrios
(neighborhoods) in Los Angeles
– Mobs of sailors and marines
sought out Mexicans and others
wearing a zoot suit and beat them
– Another example of racial prejudice and intolerance
The Situation in Europe in December 1941
• The Nazis break the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with
Operation Barbarossa in June, 1941 (too late?)
– Germany had attacked the USSR and was pushing toward
Moscow and the oil-rich Caucacus Region
• Hitler needed oil and needed to keep from the Allies
– Irwin Rommel (“The Desert
Fox” of the Afrika Korps)
would help him control N.
Africa
• Europe or the Pacific, first?
(“Europe First”)
• Military rule by the Nazis
was harsh in Europe
The Situation in Europe in December 1941
• The “final solution” to the “Jewish question” was
underway
– Jews were crowded into ghettos (small sections of
cities) that could be guarded
• Starvation and disease killed thousands
– Others were sent to concentration camps and executed
with poison gas
The War in Europe
• Where to attack first?
– In North Africa and move into Italy?
– In France and stage forces in Great Britain?
– In the USSR and help our new ally, the Soviets?
• November 1942 the US invades northern Africa
– Led by Generals Bradley and Patton, Axis resistance
collapses by May 1943
• Italy surrenders in September but Germans there
fight fiercely to keep the US out
• The USSR fights alone and turns the tide at
Stalingrad
– 200,000 Germans and 1 million Soviets die
– Geography, climate and population doom the Nazis
The War in Europe
• Meanwhile the American pilots rely on precision
bombing of Axis targets while the British pilots rely
on saturation bombing
• The decision was made NOT to bomb Auschwitz
(the largest concentration camp) or others
– They were afraid of killing Jews being held
• June 6, 1944: D-Day
– The Allies invade Normandy, France and begin the push
east into Germany
• Meanwhile the Soviets push west and liberate the
camps where the true horrors of the holocaust are
discovered.
– Genocide = the systematic killing of a racial, political or
cultural group
The War in Europe Comes to an End
• The Battle of the Bulge (December 1944)
– Hitler makes one last
counteroffensive in Belgium
where the line bends but does
not break
• April, 1945
– With the Soviets near Berlin, Hitler commits suicide
– FDR dies and Harry Truman becomes president
• May 8, 1945: VE Day (Victory in Europe)
The War in the Pacific
• Pearl Harbor destroyed the Pacific fleet and that
allowed Japan to further consolidate power in the
Pacific
• In March 1942, MacArthur and Filipino fighters left
the Philippines after defeat by the Japanese (“I shall
return!”)
– 7000 American prisoners die on the 63 mile “Bataan
Death March” at the hands of the Japanese
• Japan controlled the Chinese coast but in the Battle
of the Coral Sea the American navy led by Admiral
Chester Nimitz defeated the Japanese navy (May
1942) and the Japanese did not expand into Australia
• Meanwhile, James Doolittle and the American Air
Force were bombing Tokyo
The War in the Pacific
• The “Europe First” strategy hurt American
commanders in the Pacific
• The policy of island-hopping (leapfrogging) is adopted
– One by one, the American navy and marines would liberate
Japanese-held islands moving us closer to mainland Japan
– Sometimes an island could be skipped, isolating it from
others leading to eventual surrender when supplies ran out
• At the Battle of Midway (June 1942) the Japanese
went on the offensive to eliminate the American navy
and failed
– The Japanese never fully recovered and moved to a
defensive stand for the rest of the war
The War in the Pacific
• MacArthur does return to the Philippines in
October 1944
• Iwo Jima and Okinawa would
bring the U.S. even closer to
Japan for invasion
– Nearly all of Japan’s 22,000 soldiers die defending Iwo
Jima and 6800 Americans die in taking the island
– At Okinawa, bloody combat
claimed the lives of 12,000
Americans and 100,000 Japanese
• Kamikaze pilots become a new
concern
The Manhattan Project
• German American scientist Albert Einstein made
FDR aware of the destructive power of nuclear
bombs
• By the summer of 1945, the top
secret “Manhattan Project”
produced an atomic weapon
• Does the U.S. use it or not?
– Perhaps 500,000 Americans
die if Japan is invaded
– Many Japanese civilians
would die in the aftermath
• The Japanese would not
accept unconditional surrender and they showed
their determination to fight at Iwo Jima, Okinawa
and with kamikaze pilots
• August 6, 1945
– The Enola Gay drops the first atomic
bomb (“Little Boy”) on Hiroshima
– 80,000 people die
• August 9, 1945
– A second bomb (“Fat Man”) is
dropped on Nagasaki
– 40,000 people die
• It is estimated a total of 250,000 died as a
result of the blast or by burns, radiation
poisoning or cancer
• August 14, 1945
– V-J Day