Download World War Two

World War Two
Ways America Prepared for War
Selective Service Act
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Summer of 1940
First peacetime draft
Men between 21 -- 35
Registered 16.5 million men
5 million volunteered
Women in the Armed Services
 250,000 women enlisted
 First time women were permitted to volunteer for
armed forces
 Non-combat roles (accountants, bookkeepers,
drivers, radio operators)
 Served in all branches
 WACS (women’s armed corp services)
 WAVES (women in the navy)
 WAFS (women in the air force)
WAFS
Women in WW2
 Very strict guidelines for women to serve in
the military
 Age 20-49
 No children under age 14
 Minimum of two years of high school
Women in the work force
 Five million women entered the workforce
 Many worked in industrial jobs in
shipyards, defense plants, etc.
 Received 60% less pay than men
Rosie The Riveter
African Americans in WW2
 1.5 million AA left the south for jobs in the north
and west
 1 million left home to serve in the armed forces
(segregated units)
 Both civilians and soldiers continued to face
discrimination and segregation
 Civil Rights leaders under the NAACP
encouraged AA to adopt the “Double V” slogan
“Double V” Campaign
 V= victory over fascism
abroad
 V = victory for equality at
home
 New Civil Rights
organization created in
1942 to work more
“militantly” for AA rights.
Named CORE = Congress
of Racial Equality
Industrial Production
 1942: War Production Board (WPB)
established to convert companies from
peacetime to wartime production.
 U.S. industries booming.
 By 1944 unemployment practically gone
 Kaiser shipyard in California could make a
new ship in 14 days
Office of Price Administration
 OPA regulated almost every aspect of
civilian life. Controlled Inflation. Froze
prices, wages, rent, etc.
 Set up a rationing system. Used coupon
booklets. Meat, sugar, coffee, gasoline,
rubber
Financing the War
 WW2 cost the U.S. $320 Billion (10x’s
more than WW1)
 Raised the money through income taxes
(first time automatically deducted from
paychecks)
 Selling war bonds (raised $135 Billion)
 1945 National Debt $250 Billion
Propaganda Poster
Organizing Science
 1939 Albert Einstein wrote FDR a personal letter.
 1941 Office of Scientific Research established to
research and develop the atomic bomb
 Team of American, British, European scientists
headed by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
 Three plants set up to produce uranium and
plutonium
The Atomic Bomb
Changes in Entertainment
 Hollywood began making war-time
propaganda films.
 60 million to 100 million moviegoers a
week
 “Prelude To War” one of the greatest
propaganda films ever made. Frank Capra
series “Why We Fight”
 Musicals, romances, comedies
Walt Disney’s contributions
 Transformed his cartoon studio into a
moviemaking factory for Uncle Sam.
 Made educational, training, fund-raising,
and morale-building films.
 Used the Seven Dwarfs to sell war bonds
 Donald Duck to inspire Americans to pay
their taxes on time
Walt Disney Wartime Propaganda
Japanese American Internment
Camps
 What does internment mean?
 What is an Executive Order? (9066)
 What motivated FDR to issue the order?
 National security
 Military necessity
 Wartime hysteria
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Internment Camps
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110,000-120,000 interned
10 camps
California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona
Issei: Japanese born (first generation)
Nisei: Children of Issei (second generation)
http://www.asianamericanmedia.org/jaintern
ment/camps/questions.html
European Front
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 Dwight Eisenhower
 Supreme Allied
Commander in Europe
 Defeat Germany 1st
 Operation Torch
(invasion of North
Africa)
 Italian campaign
Mussolini’s Death
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D-Day (June 6, 1944)
 Objective: Free France from Germany
 2 years planning
 U.S., British, Canadian troops landed along
60 mile stretch of beach (Normandy)
 Largest amphibious attack (3 million
troops)
 Five landings: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno,
Sword beaches
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D-Day
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 D-Day deception at
Calais
 Phantom landing force
 Inflatable tanks,
dummy landing crafts
 Fooled Germans
temporarily to allow
landing at Normandy
American Experience website
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Origins of “D-Day”
Paratroopers
Letters sent home describing the landing
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/
Germany Defeated
 Last German offensive to stop Allies from
entering Germany: Battle of Bulge
 One month. Germans lost 120,000 troops
 April, 1945 Allies seize Berlin
 April 29,1945 Hitler marries Eva Braun
 April 30: Hitler shot himself and Braun
swallowed poison. Bodies burned.
 May 8, 1945: V-E Day
Yalta Conference
 Feb. 1945: FDR, Churchill, Stalin met in
Yalta, on the Black Sea.
 Decisions made:
 Create a world peace-keeping organization at
the end of WW2 (United Nations)
 Soviets promised to enter the war against Japan,
3 months after war ends in Europe
 “Free elections” in Soviet occupied Eastern
Europe
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Pacific Campaign
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 Douglas MacArthur:
Supreme Allied
Commander of the
Pacific
 Island hopping
(strategy in Pacific)
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The Manhattan Project
 April 12, 1945: FDR’s dies
 Harry S. Truman becomes President
 A few days later, learns about the
Manhattan Project
 July 16, 1945: A-Bomb tested at Los
Alamos, New Mexico
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Little Boy
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 Aug. 6, 1945
 Target: Hiroshima
 Carried by B-29
bomber: Enola Gay
 Uranium 235
 Killed 75,000
 Injured 68,000
Fat Man
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 Aug. 9, 1945
 Target: Nagasaki
 plutonium implosiontype bomb.
 Over 200,000 died
resulting from injuries
and radiation poison
 Sept. 2, 1945 official
surrender
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Truman’s Justifications
 Japan unwilling to surrender; fight to their
death (Kamakazi attitude)
 Huge land invasion of Japan necessary
 War could last additional 5 years; 1 million
more lives lost
 Eliminate Soviet input in post war
negotiations
Nuremberg Trials
 1945-1949 Nuremberg, Germany
 22 Nazi leaders tried for war crimes (crimes
against humanity)
 12 sentenced to death. Rest to prison
 200 lesser leaders found guilty
 First time a nation’s leaders held legally
responsible for their actions during wartime
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