Download 2 1. Events that made the US join World War Two……..

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Table of content
Introduction………………………………………………..2
1. Events that made the U.S. join World War Two……..3
2. Major operations of the U.S. in Europe………………5
2.1.
Operation Shingle……………………………….5
2.2.
Operation Overlord……………………………...6
2.3.
Operation Market Garden……………………….8
2.4.
Operation Veritable……………………………...9
3. Losses and profits………………………………………11
3.1.
Material and Human costs………………………11
3.2.
Economical influence in Europe………………..13
Conclusion…………………………………………………15
Bibliography…………………………………………….....16
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Introduction
In order to influence the outcome of the war the US decided to help the Allies ( British
Empire and French Resistence) and join the European fighting. Because of their intervention,
they managed to shorten the war and dramatically changed the balance and destiny of a free
Europe. I also have to mention that their sacrifice was worth everything because the profit
they earned was enormous! I chose this subject because I wanted to illustrate the losses and
major achivements of the US army during 42'-45'. In the first chapter of my paper i will show
the reasons why the United States of America joined the Second World War and also the
beginings of the war together with the Pacific Operations. In the second and main chapter of
my paper i will present after my opinion the most important and decisive military operations
of the United States of America on the European Front. From the invasion of Italy and France
up to the invasion of the Third Reich. The third and last chapter includes the human and
material costs that the United States of America had to support during the war and ending
with the influence that they got after the fall of Berlin.
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1.Events that made the US join World War 2
The United States had indirectly supported Britain's war effort against Germany up to
1941 and declared its opposition to territorial aggrandizement. Material support to Britain
was provided prior to American intervention in the war, via the Lend Lease Act in 1941 and
authorization was given for American warships to fire upon German submarines attacking
American merchant shipping headed for Britain. American President Franklin D. Roosevelt
in August 1941 signed the Atlantic Charter that pledged commitment to achieving "the final
destruction of Nazi tyranny".
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The US opposed the Japanese war efforts in China and embargoed petroleum trade
with Japan. The US indirectly supported Nationalist Government in China in its war with
Japan, and provided military equipment, supplies, and volunteers to the Nationalist
Government of China to assist in its war effort. Japan retaliated to the American trade
embargo with the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US declared war on Japan, and Japan's allies
Germany and Italy declared war on the US, bringing the US into World War II.
On 7 December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, The United States
Congress declared war on Japan at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was
followed by Germany and Italy declaring war on the United States on 11 December, bringing
the country into the European theatre.
The US led Allied forces in the Pacific theatre against Japanese forces from 1941 to
1945. From 1943 to 1945, the US led and coordinated the Western Allies' war effort in
Europe under the leadership of General Dwight Eisenhower.
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2.Major Operations of the U.S. in Europe
2.1 Operation Shingle
Was an Allied amphibious landing in the Italian Campaign against German forces in
the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. The operation was commanded by American Major
General John P. Lucas and was intended to outflank German forces of the Winter Line and
enable an attack on Rome. The resulting combat is commonly called the Battle of Anzio.
The success of an amphibious landing at that location, in a basin substantially comprising
reclaimed marshland and surrounded by mountains, depended completely on the element of
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surprise and the swiftness with which the invaders could move relative to the reaction time of
the defenders.
2.2. Operation Overlord (6 June – 25 August 1944)
Was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the
invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The
operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with theNormandy landings (Operation Neptune,
commonly known as D-Day). A 12,000-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious
assault involving almost 7,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel
on 6 June; more than three million troops were in France by the end of August.
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General Dwight Eisenhower Stated that, "Your task will not be an easy one. Your
enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely" (Beevor,
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"Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it
over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the
quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And
when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-abitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!" (Patton, D-Day Memorials)
"We want to get the hell over there. The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess,
the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest,
too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit."(Beevor, 37)
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2.3. Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944)
Was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and
Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time.
Initially, the operation was marginally successful and several bridges between
Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured. However, Gen. Horrocks' XXX Corps ground
force's advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal, as well
as an extremely overstretched supply line, at Son, delaying the capture of the main road
bridge over the Meuse until 20 September.(Badsey,14)
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At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than
anticipated. In the ensuing battle, only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem
road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them, they were overrun on 21
September. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be
evacuated on 25 September. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine in sufficient force and
the river remained a barrier to their advance until the offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim,
Rees and Weselin March 1945. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied expectations of
finishing the war by Christmas 1944.(Badsey,23)
2.4 Operation Veritable
Was a Second World War pincer movement conducted by Field Marshal Bernard
Montgomery's 21st Army Group to clear and occupy the land between the Rhine and Maas
rivers. It took place between 8 February and 11 March 1945. It was a part of General Dwight
Eisenhower's "broad front" strategy to occupy the west bank of the Rhine before attempting
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any crossing. Veritable was originally called Valediction and had been planned for execution
in early January, 1945.(69)
The operation had three complications. First, the heavily forested terrain, squeezed
between the Rhine and Maas rivers, largely nullified Anglo-Canadian advantages in
manpower and armour and the situation was exacerbated by soft ground of the glacial loam
and deliberate flooding of the adjacent flood plains. The allied plan was, that this being the
northern end of the Siegfried Line, albeit heavily fortified, a skirting movement around the
line was possible here.(104)
Montgomery, the Army commander, wrote "the enemy parachute troops fought with a
fanaticism unexcelled at any time in the war" and "the volume of fire from enemy weapons
was the heaviest which had so far been met by British troops in the campaign."
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3.Losses and Profits
3.1. Material and Human costs
In terms of losses in human lives and material resources, World War II was
undeniably the most destructive military conflict to date. It was a global-military conflict that
saw 61 countries taking part in a war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The major participants
were the Allied powers, specifically the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet
Union, who were at war with the Axis Coalition of Germany and Italy in the European
Theater. And concurrently in the Pacific Theater, the United States was engaged with the
Imperial forces of Japan.
The events leading up to the war can be traced back to 1937 when Japan, seeking to
extend her colonial realm and to secure vast raw material reserves and natural resources such
as ores and petroleum, launched a full-scale invasion of mainland China. To force Japan to
cease their hostility against China, in May 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered an
embargo of all exports to Japan. Angered over this maneuver and now severely lacking in
critical resources to fuel its war effort, Japan turned its aggression on its southern neighbors.
That same year, Nazi Germany, in pursuing its own expansionist agenda, invaded
Poland and over the next two years continued its aggression by occupying Denmark, Norway,
France, and then Russia in 1941, with Italy now entering the war allied with the Germans.
Meanwhile, the Japanese army had invaded French-Indochina in 1940 and launched near
simultaneous assaults on Malaya, Viet Nam, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Wake
Island. Their subsequent attack on the U.S. naval fleet moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with
the loss of 2,403 lives, brought the U.S. into the war in December of 1941.
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Over the next four years, the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines engaged both
the Japanese forces in the Pacific while at the same time joining the Allied forces in Europe
against Adolph Hitler’s invading armies in Germany and Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime in
Italy.
Following the encirclement and fall of Berlin by the Soviet army in April of 1945 and
the resultant suicide of Hitler, Germany surrendered on May 7th in Rheims, France. With the
war over in Europe, the American forces now focused on conducting an enormous invasion
of the Japanese mainland in an effort to bring the war in the Pacific to an end. On further
reflection, however, to prevent large numbers of U.S. casualties that would result from the
invasion, President Harry S. Truman ordered the use of a new atomic weapon instead. The
atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and a second bomb on the port
city of Nagasaki three days later. On September 2, the Japanese High Command formally
surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
But what was the cost of the war to the United States? For some people, the cost of
the war is considered strictly in monetary terms. But there was also another cost, one much
more irreplaceable than money - the costs in human lives.
Monetarily, in 1940 dollars, the estimated cost was $288 Billion. In 2007 dollars this
would amount to approximately $5 Trillion. In addition, the effects of the war on the U.S.
economy were that it decisively ended the depression and created a booming economic
windfall. Because the United States mainland was untouched by the war her economic wealth
and prosperity soared as she became the world leader in manufacturing, technology, industry
and agriculture.
In terms of the costs in American lives lost the following list the final estimations:
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
Army – 234,874

Navy - 36, 958

Marines - 19,733

Coast Guard - 574

Merchant Marines - 9,521
Total American lives killed in action: 295,790
3.2Economical influence in Europe
Europe was devastated by years of conflict during World War II. Millions of people had
been killed or wounded. Industrial and residential centers in England, France, Germany,
Italy, Poland, Belgium and elsewhere lay in ruins. Much of Europe was on the brink of
famine as agricultural production had been disrupted by war. Transportation infrastructure
was in shambles. The only major power in the world that was not significantly damaged was
the United States.
From 1945 through 1947, the United States was already assisting European economic
recovery with direct financial aid. Military assistance to Greece and Turkey was being
given. The newly formed United Nations was providing humanitarian assistance. In January
1947, U. S. President Harry Truman appointed George Marshall, the architect of victory
during WWII, to be Secretary of State. Writing in his diary on January 8, 1947, Truman said,
“Marshall is the greatest man of World War II. He managed to get along with Roosevelt, the
Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he made a grand record in
China. When I asked him to [be] my special envoy to China, he merely said, ‘Yes, Mr.
President I'll go.’ No argument only patriotic action. And if any man was entitled to balk
and ask for a rest, he was. We'll have a real State Department now.”
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In just a few months, State Department leadership under Marshall with expertise
provided by George Kennan, William Clayton and others crafted the Marshall Plan concept,
which George Marshall shared with the world in a speech on June 5, 1947 at
Harvard. Officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was
intended to rebuild the economies and spirits of western Europe, primarily. Marshall was
convinced the key to restoration of political stability lay in the revitalization of national
economies. Further he saw political stability in Western Europe as a key to blunting the
advances of communism in that region.(Hogan,89)
Sixteen nations, including Germany, became part of the program and shaped the
assistance they required, state by state, with administrative and technical assistance provided
through the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) of the United States. European
nations received nearly $13 billion in aid, which initially resulted in shipments of food,
staples, fuel and machinery from the United States and later resulted in investment in
industrial capacity in Europe. Marshall Plan funding ended in 1951.
Marshall Plan nations were assisted greatly in their economic recovery. From 1948
through 1952 European economies grew at an unprecedented rate. Trade relations led to the
formation of the North Atlantic alliance. Economic prosperity led by coal and steel industries
helped to shape what we know now as the European Union.(Hogan,43)
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Conclusion
After the Second World War, as many expected, the U.S. kept their troops and diplomatical
officers in Europe, they claimed influence over german territory, Bavarian Region to be more
exact.They built a lot of factories so that they may ensure an economical benefit for the
future. Even today they receive money from the profit of those factories. After World War 2
the U.S. ramained and will remain a major "dictator" in Europe. The United States of
America have had a major contrubution to the outcome of war and also for the the peace
keeping forces that ensured a good evolution of things in Europe.
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Bibliography
1. Arnhem 1944:Operation”Market Garden”. Stephan Badsey. Osprey Publishing (May
27, 1993)
2. D-Day: Battle for Normandy- Antony Beevor. Penguin Books; Reprint edition
(September 28, 2010)
3. The Marshall Plan-Michael J. Hogan. Cambridge University Press (January 27, 1989)
4. Report on Operation Veritable. Military Library Research Service Ltd (February
2006)
5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord (web) 5 March 2013)