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Chapter 17
THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR II
Section 1
Mobilizing for Defense
Americans Join the War Effort
Japan attacked America thinking it would deter them from wanting to join the war clearing the
way for the Axis Powers
Instead it awoke America and brought them full force into the war
Americans packed the recruiting offices trying to find a way to join the war 5 million
volunteered which was not enough so they utilized the selective service act and drafted 5
million more giving them 10 million soldiers to fight a 2 front war in Europe and the Pacific
George Marshall pushed for the Women’s Auxiliary Corp (WAAC) and it also passed through
congress and became law on May 15, 1942
Women worked as nurses, ambulance drivers, radio operators, electricians, and pilots
Despite many discriminations minority groups joined the war effort giving the Americans an
even larger more diverse force.
A Production Miracle
The nations automobile industry joined in by producing tanks, planes, boats, and command
cars.
Shipyards and defense plants expanded all over the country rapidly
Nearly 18 million people joined in on the work effort to produce war materials tripling the
number from 1941 to 1942
Women and minorities were a very large part of this work force
Many factories declared that negroes would only be hired as janitors because anything more
would be against their policies
A Production Miracle
A. Phillip Randolph led a march on Washington against this discrimination.
FDR after trying to get them to back down eventually backed down and gave an executive order
to businesses to give them full employment rights.
FDR also created the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in order to
continually develop and improve technologies for the war effort.
The OSRD also pushed for medical improvements to keep the soldiers from getting diseases on
the battlefield
The Most significant development of the OSRD was the secrecy of the Manhattan Project which
developed the atom bomb which would eventually end the war.
The Federal Government Takes Control
FDR created the Office of Price Administration (OPA) which fought inflation by freezing prices
on most goods to prevent them from getting to high for the general public.
They also raised income taxes and taxed groups that had never been taxed before which took
away from people being able to buy certain scarce goods allowing more to go for war effort
without hurting the home front very bad.
The Government also encouraged the public to use their extra cash to buy war bonds
essentially loaning money to the government for the war effort
The War Production Board (WPB) also was put in charge of all efforts to control the supplies
and goods to make sure they went to the war effort
The Federal Government Takes Control
The OPA setup a system of rationing to ensure that supplies would last
They set a certain amount of goods that each household would need and be able to get by
They also issued ration books that could be used to buy meat, shoes, sugar, coffee, and
gasoline.
This allowed them to make sure they had enough war supplies and most Americans accepted
this idea
People would car pool, limit their driving and grew their own foods. IT was a total effort by the
country to help in the war.
Section 2
The War for Europe and North Africa
The United States and Britain Join Forces
Winston Churchill and Roosevelt came together and met to come up with a plan to attack the
Axis Powers.
The Germans immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor ordered submarine attacks in the
Atlantic on the USA east coast in order to prevent food and water from getting to the Allies in
Europe
The Germans were very successful in this sinking 681 Allied ships in 7 months. So the Allies
countered this by setting up convoys (groups of ships traveling together for protection.)
After this and the more rapid development of ships by the Americans the war in the water was
turning to the Allies
The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean
The Germans had invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 but the battles drug out into the
winter and the weather had stopped the Germans in their tracks
By the Spring of 1942 they were ready to continue attacking the Soviets
The Germans went to take over Stalingrad and were destroying it piece by piece when Stalin
told them they had no choice but to stay and fight for the city that carried his name
The city looked to be near defeated when a brutal winter set in and it halted the Germans and
the Soviets who were more accustomed to the weather on January 31, 1943 the Germans
surrendered at Stalingrad starving and frozen.
The Soviets lost a total of 1,000,000 men defending Stalingrad but this victory marked a major
turning point in the war for the Allies as this was the first major defeat by the Germans in the
war. The Soviets then began to move westward towards Germany
The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean
Stalin wanted the US and British to attack Germany in Northern Europe to divert troops from
the Soviets
Churchill and FDR felt that they did not have enough troops for this so they instead launched an
attack in Axis controlled Northern Africa under the command of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Eisenhower’s troops attacked the German leader General Erwin Rommel “The Desert Fox” and
by may 1943 had conquered them
The Eastern Front and the Mediterranean
The next target the Allies went after was Italy as they moved Northward through Italy and was
very successful
The Italian army folded in Sicily and King Victor Emmanuel III ordered Mussolini to resign and
stripped him of all his power. He then told him he was the most hated man in Italy.
Hitler then launched an attack on the Allies in Italy to keep them out of Germany and they had some
very difficult battles right outside Rome in Anzio.
Italy was not freed until 1945 when Germany was close to collapsing
Heroes Fighting in Italy
The Tuskegee Airmen pilots of the all black 99th Pursuit Squadron fought in Italy and had many
victories
The 92nd Airborne nicknamed “The Buffaloes” also an all black squadron played a key role in
the battles over Italy
17 Mexican American soldiers were awarded Congressional Medal of Honors
Japanese Americans and Hawaiian Americans fought in Italy in a unit that was later named the
Purple Heart Battalion and they later became they most decorated unit in US History.
The Allies Liberate Europe
The Allies setup a plan to liberate France and Western Europe
They setup an operation known as D-Day on June 6, 1944.
Eisenhower setup a massive decoy at a British town across from the French port of Calais.
They setup fake command Centers, blowup tanks, sent out fake messages, had fake weapons
which drew the attention of the Germans and Hitler setup the majority of his forces in the
French Port of Calais
The Allies Liberate Europe
While they did that the Americans and British invaded France at the beaches of Normandy in
the largest sea/land operation in history
General Omar Bradley unleashed a massive air land attack allowing General George Patton to
advance his troops into Paris.
By September 1944 the Allies had freed France, Belgium, and Luxembourg
October 1944 the Americans captured their first German town. , Achen.
The Battle of the Bulge on December 16, 1944 was a last ditch effort of Hitler to try and break
up the Allied lines
This battle lasted for a month and the Allies turned the Germans back and from that point on
all the Germans could od was retreat until the end of the war.
Death Camps Discovered
The Soviets were the 1st to discover the Death Camps as they came up on Majdanek in Poland.
The things they saw horrified them and the Americans felt equally as appalled as they came up
on more in Poland.
As the Allies drew closer Hitler saw the end coming.
He married Eva Braun on April 29 then spoke to the German people blaming the Jews for
starting the war and his Generals for losing the war.
The next day he shot himself while his new wife swallowed poison
General Eisenhower accepted their full surrender a week later and V.E. Day (Victory in Europe)
was celebrated on May 8, 1945.
FDR did not live to see VE day as he had a stroke and died while posing for a picture on April 12,
1945. That same night Harry S. Truman became the 33rd US President.
Section 3
The War in the Pacific
The Allies Stem the Japanese Tide
The Allies agreed Hitler was their first priority but they immediately turned their full attention
to the Japanese after V-E Day
In the 1st 6 months after Pearl Harbor the Japanese conquered an empire that dwarfed Hitler’s
conquering Hong Kong, French Indochina, Malaya, Burma, Thailand, and much of China.
General Douglass MacArthur was in charge of the American troops in the Islands of the Pacific
When they were on the verge of defeat FDR ordered MacArthur to leave the islands to head to
safety and he vowed to return and defeat the Japanese armies.
The Allies Stem the Japanese Tide
In Spring of 1942 the Allies began to turn the tide on the Japanese with the Doolittle Raids
The Americans and Australian troops battled the Japanese at the Battle of the Corral Sea
successfully keeping the Japanese from invading Australia with only the use of air planes
Japan tried to make a big push at the Battle of Midway. The Allies succeeded in stopping the
Japanese as they had broken the Japanese code and knew that was the next target the Japanese
were attacking.
Admiral Chester Nimitz was the commander of the American Naval forces in the Pacific moved
to defend the islands on June 3, 1942.
The Americans heavily defeated the Japanese at Midway and this was the turning point in the
war in the Pacific
The Allies Go on the Offensive
August 1942 was the 1st offensive the Allies went on towards the Japanese in the Guadalcanal
in the Solomon Islands
General MacArthur returned to the Philippines to lead the troops against the Japanese at the
Battle of Leyte Gulf.
This is where Japanese began using Kamikaze pilots (suicide bombers) Kamikaze stands for
“divine wind” and refers to a legendary typhoon that took place in Japan in 1281 destroying the
Mongols and protecting Japan.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf was a disaster for the Japanese
The Allies Go on the Offensive
The next island the Americans went towards after freeing the Philippines was Iwo Jima which
was very important for the Americans in order to be able to land bombers their to take off and
head to Japan. Iwo Jima was the most heavily guarded place on the planet but it still fell to the
Americans
The next battle the Americans took on was Okinawa which was brutal and cost many American
lives even though the Allies won it foreshadowed what an invasion of deep into Japan would be
like.
This led to the decision to drop the atomic bomb
The Atomic Bomb Ends the War
Because of the high casualties of Iwo Jima and Okinawa Truman looked to the Manhattan Project to
help end the wart while minimizing American casualties
General Leslie Groves and Jewish American Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the development the
Atomic Bomb was not only the most ambitious scientific enterprise in history it was also the best kept
secret of the war.
Truman warned the Japanese that if they did not surrender at once they would suffer utter
destruction they refused and Truman ordered the dropping of the bomb on 2 Japanese cities
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 6, 1945 The Enola Gay a B-29 Bomber dropped an atomic bomb code named “Little Boy” on
Hiroshima
August 9, 1945 they dropped a second bomb code named ”Fat Man” over Nagasaki
The Japanese surrendered after the final bomb due to the high casualties that happened to innocent
people.
Rebuilding Begins
In February 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Soviet resort city of Yalta and
discussed the post war world.
Stalin and Churchill disagreed on many things but FDR served as a moderator in order to keep
the Soviets in on future peace talks and hopefully to have them support the United Nations
concept they wanted to build
They agreed on a temporary division of Germany amongst the 4 of them (Soviet, British,
French, and American)
Stalin agreed to join in the war against Japan
Nuremberg War Trials
&
Occupation of Japan
Hitler’s most trusted party officials were the defendants in trials against the Nazi war crimes
12 of the 24 defendants were sentenced to death and most of the rest were sent to prison.
In later trials nearly 200 lesser Nazi leaders were found guilty of war crimes as well.
Japan was occupied by U.S. forces under General Douglass MacArthur
In Japan more than 1100 Japanese leaders from Hideki Tojo all the way down to Security guards
were arrested.
Tojo and 6 others were sentenced to death
MacArthur introduced many reforms to the Japanese economy with free-market practices and
setup the Government of Japan very similar to that of America’s
To this day the Japanese Constitution is known as the MacArthur Constitution
Human Rights Legacy
In 1948 the United Nations adopted a world to take a strong stand to protect Human Rights
Universally
This formed Universal Human rights laws
They also declared Genocide to be an international crime
Section 4
The Home Front
Opportunity and Adjustment
During the war unemployment fell to an all time low in 1944 and people were able to make and
save money.
Farmers and women prospered during the war time era due to high demand
The war caused one of the largest mass migrations in our nations history as people would
uproot their families and move elsewhere looking for work
The GI Bill was put into place which gave education and training for veterans paid for by the
federal government. This also gave them guaranteed loans on businesses and homes as well.
Discrimination and Reaction
Many African American’s left the South looking for better opportunities to work and to avoid
discrimination.
They found jobs elsewhere but discrimination followed them wherever they went in the nation.
James Farmer founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to confront Urban segregation
Many race riots and tension began to pop up from both sides in 1943 and the realization that
there was a lot of race tension in America was discovered.
In Los Angeles there were race tensions heavy between Mexican –Americans and Californians.
The Mexican American teens would wear “Zuit suits” which was a symbol of their rebellion
towards tradition and authority.
Many riots broke out in neighborhoods and anyone wearing a “zuit suit” paid dearly for it as
the people sought them out and beat them and took their suits
Internment of Japanese Americans
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor life became more difficult for Japanese Americans as
tensions grew very high towards them mostly on the West Coast
FDR then ordered the evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and to
internment camps for national security reasons.
No specific charges were ever founded against any Japanese-American citizens
After the war The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) got the government to
compensate those sent to the camps for lost property.
Eventually by 1990 the Japanese – Americans that were sent to the camps received
compensation and a letter of sorrow for the wrongs of the past from President George H.W.
Bush