Download Chapter 24 (WWII) Class Notes

Mr. Schaber - US History - Ch. 24 Class Notes (WWII)
*Section 1 - Prelude to Global War
- In the ‘30s, while Americans faced personal hardships and political upheaval at home,
conditions in other countries were even worse
- The US watched warily as dictators in Europe and Asia sought to solve their nations’ problems
by extending their power at the expense of other nations
- Throughout the ‘20s and ‘30s brutal dictators came to power in Europe - in Germany, Italy, and
the Soviet Union totalitarian governments controlled every aspect of life
- These governments used terror to suppress individual freedoms and to silence all forms of
opposition
- Germany’s Adolf Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini based their governments on a
philosophy called fascism
- Fascism places the importance of the nation above the value of the individual - Hitler and
Mussolini focused on the need to rebuild Germany and Italy
- Unlike communism, which calls for all society to jointly own the nation’s means of
production, fascism allows private business
- According to Communist theory, conflicts between workers and owners will not exist in a
Communist society, because the workers are the owners
- In a Fascist system such conflicts are resolved by the government’s power
- Under both systems, however, the result is the same - individual rights and freedoms are lost as
everyone works for the benefit of society and the nation
- Mussolini felt his country had been shortchanged in the peace settlement after WWI - in 1919
he joined with other dissatisfied war veterans to organize the revolutionary Fascist party
- Calling himself Il Duce (“the leader”) , Mussolini organized Fascist groups throughout Italy
- He relied on gangs of Fascist thugs, called Blackshirts because of the way they dressed, to
terrorize and bring under control those who opposed him
- By 1922 Mussolini had become such a powerful figure that when he threatened to march on
Rome, the king panicked and appointed him prime minister
- Mussolini and the Fascists claimed that efficiency and order were necessary to restore the
nation’s greatness, so they suspended elections, outlawed all other political parties, and soon
established a dictatorship
- In October 1935 Mussolini invaded Ethiopia - by March 1936 Ethiopia was in Italian hands
- While Mussolini was gaining control in Italy, a discontented Austrian painter was rising to
power in Germany
- Like Mussolini, Adolf Hitler had been wounded while serving in WWI - he also was enraged
by the outcome of the war and by the terms of the peace settlement
- In 1919 Hitler joined a small political party which soon took the name National Socialist
German Workers’ party, or Nazi party
- His powerful public-speaking abilities quickly made him a leader - in November 1923, with
some 3,000 followers, Hitler tried to overthrow the German government - authorities easily
crushed the uprising, and Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison - he ended up only serving
9 months
- Most of Hitler’s time in prison was devoted to writing the first volume of an autobiography
titled Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”)
- In it Hitler outlined the Nazi philosophy, his views of German problems, and his plans for the
nation - according to Mein Kampf, Germany had been weakened by certain groups who lived
within its borders - he was highly critical of the nation’s Jewish population, which he blamed for
Germany’s defeat in WWI
- In Mein Kampf, Hitler proposed strengthening the nation’s military and expanding its borders
to include Germans living in other nations
- He also called for purifying the so-called Aryan “race” (blond, blue-eyed Germans) by
removing from Germany those groups he considered undesirable - in time, removal came to
mean the mass murder of millions of Jews and other peoples
- Saddled with huge debts because of WWI, Germany suffered high unemployment and massive
inflation during the 1920s - in the early ‘30s, the effects of the Great Depression further ravaged
the German people
- Hitler and the Nazis promised to stabilize the country, rebuild the economy, and restore the lost
empire
- Because of such promises, Hitler gradually won a large following - by January 1933 the Nazi
party was the largest group in the Reichstag (the German parliament) and Hitler became head of
the German state
- He soon silenced his opposition, suspended civil liberties, and convinced the Reichstag to give
him dictatorial powers - Hitler then took for himself the title Der Fuhrer, or “the leader”
- On March 9, 1936, German troops moved into the Rhineland, a region in western Germany
along the borders of France and Belgium
- The Treaty of Versailles, signed after WWI, had expressly excluded German military forces
from the region - the invasion of the Rhineland was an enormous gamble for Hitler because it
clearly violated the Versailles treaty
- But, neither Britain or France resisted Hitler in this move
- Also in 1936, Hitler signed an alliance with the Italian dictator, Mussolini - this created what
Mussolini called an “axis” between Rome and Berlin, the capitals of the two nations
- Germany and Italy, joined later by Japan, became known as the Axis Powers
- Encouraged by his success in the Rhineland, in March 1938 Hitler sent German troops into the
neighboring nation of Austria and annexed it
- Several months later, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, a region of eastern Czechoslovakia
with a heavily German population
- In an effort to avoid war, representatives from England, France, Germany, and Italy met in
Munich, Germany, in September 1938 - Britain and France followed a policy of appeasement
(giving in to someone’s demands in order to keep the peace)
- Neither Britain or France was prepared for war - at the Munich Conference, therefore, Britain
and France agreed to let Hitler have the Sudetenland, hoping that his appetite for territory would
be satisfied
- “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor,” said Winston Churchill, a
member of Parliament, of this action. “They chose dishonor. They will have war.”
- In March 1939, only six months after occupying the Sudetenland, Hitler annexed the rest of
Czechoslovakia
- British and French leaders warned him that any further German expansion risked war - on
March 31, 1939, they formally pledged their support to Poland, agreeing to come to its aid if
invaded by Germany
- Hitler was unconcerned about such threats, so on September 1, 1939, he invaded Poland two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany
- In invading Poland, the German military unveiled a tactic called blitzkrieg, or “lightning war”
- Tanks, artillery, and soldiers, moving by truck instead of on foot, rapidly struck deep into
enemy territory before the foe had time to react
- Using this tactic, German troops overran Poland in less than a month
- In mid-September, under the terms of the agreement he’d made with Hitler, Stalin of Russia
attacked and seized eastern Poland for the Soviet Union
- After Poland fell, the war entered a quiet period - for the next several months, German troops
sat and watched French forces on the Maginot Line (a system of defenses that France had built
along its border with Germany)
- The American press called this “the phony war”
- On April 9, 1940, the phony war came to an end as Hitler launched an attack on Denmark and
Norway
- On May 10, German troops moved and launched a blitzkrieg on Belgium, the Netherlands, and
France
- All three countries were quickly overwhelmed
- In the face of this savage German attack, British forces in France retreated to the coastal city of
Dunkirk
- There, over a nine-day period in late May and early June, one of the greatest rescues in the
history of warfare took place - while other troops fought to slow the advancing Germans, some
900 vessels were hastily assembled
- The makeshift fleet consisted mainly of tugboats, yachts, and other small private craft
- Braving merciless attacks by the Luftwaffe (the German air force), they carried nearly 340,000
soldiers across the English Channel to Great Britain
- On June 14, German troops entered the city of Paris and a few days later France surrendered
- In less than three months Hitler had conquered most of western Europe
- Of the Allies (those who fought against the Axis), Great Britain now stood alone
- As France was falling, Hitler massed troops on the French coast - his next target was Great
Britain, just 20 miles away across the English Channel
- Winston Churchill, now Britain’s prime minister, said: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall
fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills; we shall never surrender.”
- Hitler turned to the Luftwaffe to destroy Britain’s ability and will to resist - thus, in the Battle
of Britain, he launched the greatest air assault the world had yet seen
- As many as 1,000 planes a day rained bombs on Britain
- The Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots sometimes flew six and seven missions a day, inflicting
heavy losses on the attacking Germans
- The British people were equally brave - in December 1940, German bombing of London started
some 1,500 fires, setting the center of the city ablaze
- By June 1941, when Hitler finally ended the bombing, nearly 30,000 Londoners had been killed
and 120,000 injured
- Many Japanese were as unhappy with their situation in Asia in the 1920s as Italians and
Germans were with their status in Europe
- Japan lacked sufficient raw materials and markets for its industries - it also needed land for its
rising population
- Thus, some Japanese were eager and ready to establish an empire of their own
- The Great Depression added to Japan’s economic woes
- In 1931 Japan shocked everyone when its army seized Manchuria, a mineral-rich region in
northern China
- In 1937 Japan resumed its aggression in China - despite American help, the Chinese army of
General Chiang Kai-shek was no match for the invaders
- An ongoing battle between Chiang’s army and the Communist guerrilla fighters led by Mao
Zedong contributed to the weakness of China - by 1940 the Japanese controlled most of eastern
China
- Japan became an ally of Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact of September 1940 - then in
April 1941 the Japanese signed a neutrality pact with the Soviet Union
- The stage was now set for Japan to challenge the Europeans and Americans for supremacy in
Asia
- American officials watched Japan’s actions in Asia with growing concern - in 1938 President
FDR began a naval buildup in the Pacific
- The following year he moved the American Pacific Fleet from San Diego, California, to Pearl
Harbor in Hawaii
- Americans did not want to fight a war in Asia any more than they did in Europe
- Most remained disillusioned by WWI - many believed the nation already had enough problems
at home, as the American economy remained trapped in the Great Depression - these people
supported the policy of isolationism
- In the mid-1930s, Congress had responded to isolationist sentiment by passing a series of
Neutrality Acts
- These laws declared that the US would withhold weapons and loans from all nations at war
- Further, they required that nonmilitary good sold to nations at war be paid for in cash and
transported by the purchaser - this policy became known as “cash and carry”
- After the war began, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 - this law permitted Britain
and France to purchase weapons on a cash-and-carry basis
- A later amendment allowed American merchant ships to transport these purchases to Britain
- German aggression scared many Americans - in 1940, Congress authorized the first peacetime
draft in the nation’s history
- The Selective Service Act required all males ages 21 to 36 to register for military service
- In November 1940 Roosevelt won reelection to a third term as President - his easy victory
encouraged him to push for greater American involvement in the war
- In January 1941 he proposed to provide war supplies to Great Britain without any payment in
return
- Congress responded by passing the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941, which authorized the
President to aid any nation whose defense he believed was vital to American security
- Roosevelt immediately began sending aid to Britain, and the US became, as FDR had said in a
speech in 1940, “the great arsenal of democracy”
- Soon after France fell to the Germans, the Japanese demanded control of French colonies in
Indochina
- In mid-1941 Japanese forces occupied the region - in response, Roosevelt froze Japanese
financial assets in the US and cut off all trade with Japan
- Also, the US government had cracked secret Japanese codes and had been intercepting
messages - American officials knew that Japan was planning to seize more territory
- In October 1941, General Hideki Tojo, who supported war with the US, became prime
minister of Japan
- Yet Roosevelt still hoped for peace - he proposed to his advisers that trade could be resumed if
Japan halted any further troop movements
- On November 25, the American government learned that a Japanese fleet was moving toward
Southeast Asia
- The US demanded that Japan withdraw from all conquered territory and from its Tripartite Pact
with Germany and Italy
- Even as this tough message was being sent, a second Japanese fleet of 6 aircraft carriers and
more than 20 other ships was under way
- Japan’s leaders had decided that their goals in Asia could not be achieved as long as the
American fleet remained in Hawaii - that threat had to be destroyed
- Shortly after 7:00 A.M. on December 7, 1941 an American army radar operator on the
Hawaiian island of Oahu reported to his headquarters that planes were headed toward him
- The only officer on duty that Sunday morning decided they were American
- “Don’t worry about it,” the officer told the radar operator, as he hung up the phone
- Less than an hour later more than 180 Japanese warplanes streaked overhead - most of the
Pacific fleet lay at anchor in Pearl Harbor, crowded into an area less than three miles square
- Japanese planes bombed and strafed (attacked with machine-gun fire) the fleet and the airfields
nearby
- By 9:45 it was over - in less than two hours some 2,400 Americans had been killed and nearly
1,200 wounded
- Nearly 300 American warplanes were damaged or destroyed
- 18 warships had been sunk or heavily damaged, including 8 of the fleet’s 9 battleships - Japan
lost just 29 planes
- The attack on Pearl Harbor stunned the American people - calling December 7, 1941, “a date
which will live in infamy,” Roosevelt the next day asked Congress to declare war on Japan
- Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the US - for the second time in the
century, Americans were part of a world war - their contributions would make the difference
between victory and defeat for the Allies
*Section 2 - The Road to Victory in Europe
- In August 1941, unknown to the rest of the world, two warships quietly lay at anchor off the
coast of Newfoundland - Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Pres. FDR were aboard, and
they both believed the US would soon be allied with Great Britain in war, so they were meeting
to agree on the war’s goals
- Roosevelt and Churchill put their beliefs and ideas into writing in the Atlantic Charter - the
agreement reached at this meeting would form the basis for the United Nations
- As the US prepared for war, thousands of American men received official notices to enter the
army or navy - afer the bombing of Pearl Harbor, tens of thousands more volunteered to serve
- FDR spoke of 4 essential freedoms he wanted all in the world to have: speech/expression,
religion, all needs filled, freedom for fear
- WWII greatly changed the lives of millions of Americans - the 15 million Americans who
served as soldiers, sailors, and aviators made their way through distant deserts, jungles, swamps,
turbulent seas, and tough skies
- Americans soldiers called themselves Gis, after the “Government Issue” stamp that appeared
on all shoes, clothes, weapons, and other equipment provided by the military
- As soldiers fought in filthy foxholes overseas, they dreamed of home and a cherished way of
life
- Americans from all ethnic and racial backgrounds fought during WWII - *300,000
Mexican Americans;
* 25,000 Native Americans (the Marines recruited about 300 Navajos to serve as radio operators,
and they developed a code based on their language that the Japanese couldn’t break - became
known as ‘code talkers’) *17,000 Japanese Americans (most were Nisei, or citizens born in the
US of Japanese immigrant parents) - the all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat team won so many
commendations for bravery while fighting in Europe that it became the most decorated military
unit in American history
*Almost 1 million African American troops volunteered or were drafted for the war - like
Japanese American troops, African Americans fought in segregated units - the African American
761st Tank Battalion captured 30 major towns from the Germans in a grueling 183-day campaign
- the Army Air Force 99th Fighter Squadron, known as the Black Eagles, shot down more than
110 enemy planes over Italy
*Also, by the war’s end, nearly 275,000 American women had volunteered for military service they served as clerks, typists, airfield control tower operators, mechanics, photographers, and
drivers - some of the 1,200 WASPs (Women Air Force Service Pilots) ferried planes around the
country and towed practice targets for antiaircraft gunners
- When the US entered the war in 1941, the situation was critical - London and other major
British cities had suffered heavy damage during the Battle of Britain
- The Germans’ blitzkrieg had extended Nazi control across most of Europe
- In North Africa a German army led by General Erwin Rommel, known as the “Desert Fox”
for his shrewd tactics, was equally successful - many people feared that Germany could not be
stopped
- At sea a desperate struggle developed in the effort to keep German submarines from isolating
Great Britain - they’d blocked it off so supplies couldn’t easily come in - US ships traveled in
convoys, but Germans still sunk many ships trying to get to Great Britain
- Since August 1940, a British army had been battling Italian and German troops in North Africa
- but in November 1942 the British, under General Bernard Montgomery, won a decisive
victory at El Alamein in Egypt
- The Germans began to retreat west - a few days later, British and American troops commanded
by American general Dwight D. Eisenhower landed in Morocco and Algeria and quickly pushed
eastward
- In May 1943 the two Allied armies came together in Tunisia, trapping Rommel’s forces despite Hitler’s instructions to fight to the death, nearly 240,000 Germans and Italians
surrendered
- Churchill and FDR met once again in January 1943, this time at Casablanca, Morocco - at this
Casablanca Conference they planned strategy for fighting much of the rest of the war
- The decision was made to continue concentrating Allied resources on Europe before trying to
win the war in the Pacific - Churchill and FDR also agreed to accept only the unconditional
surrender of Italy, Germany, and Japan
- In July 1943, American troops under General George S. Patton attacked Sicily, just south of
the Italian mainland
- When the island fell in just 38 days, Mussolini was overthrown - in September, as Allied troops
threatened the rest of Italy, its new government surrendered
- German troops in Italy, however, continued to resist, and they retreated up the Italian peninsula
- By November, German defenses stiffened and the Allied advance stalled
- In January, to get it moving again, the Allied force landed behind the German lines at Anzio,
just south of Rome
- For the next 4 months Allied soldiers fought to move more than a few miles beyond the beach before they finally broke through German defenses in May 1944, some 72,000 American soldiers
had been killed or wounded
- After winning the Battle of Anzio, the Allies quickly captured Rome - however, many more
months of heavy fighting were required before the Germans in northern Italy finally surrendered
in April 1945
- The Americans suffered nearly 190,000 casualties during the Italian campaign - German losses
approached half a million troops
- Meanwhile, as the Allies battled their way across northern Africa and southern Europe, a
struggle came about in eastern Europe
- As early as 1924 Hitler had called for the conquest of the Soviet Union, claiming that Germany
needed lebensraum (living space) to the east
- After losing the Battle of Britain, he broke his pact with Stalin and launched an attack against
the Soviet Union
- In June 1941, nearly 3.6 million German and other Axis troops poured across the length of the
Soviet border, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south
- The nearly 3 million Red Army soldiers opposing this onslaught were poorly equipped and not
well trained
- The Soviets were unprepared for the intensity and brutality of the German attack - the
Luftwaffe quickly gained control of the air, and German ground troops drove deep into Soviet
territory
- In lands they occupied, German troops began rounding up and executing large numbers of
civilians
- The Soviets adopted a scorched earth policy, destroying everything useful to the enemy as they
retreated
- In the meantime, Stalin asked Roosevelt for help through the Lend-Lease program - Congress
blocked this request for many months - American aid didn’t flow into Russia until June 1942
- By that summer, German armies threatened major cities deep inside the Soviet Union - Stalin
urged his allies to launch an attack on Western Europe - this would take off some pressure by
forcing Hitler to fight on two fronts
- Churchill, however, hesitated to make such a risky invasion - at Casablanca he persuaded FDR
instead to invade Italy, which he called the “soft underbelly” of Europe - the Soviets had to
confront the German army on their own
- The Red Army decided to make its stand at Stalingrad, a major industrial railroad center
- In mid-September 1942 the Germans began a campaign of bombing and shelling that lasted
more than two months
- The Soviets took up positions in the rubble that remained of Stalingrad and engaged the
advancing German troops in bitter house-to-house fighting
- In mid-November, taking advantage of the harsh Russian weather, Soviet forces counterattacked and surrounded the German army
- In late January, the Red Army launched a final assault on the freezing enemy
- On January 31, 1943, more than 90,000 surviving Germans surrendered
- In all, Germany lost some 330,000 troops at Stalingrad - the Soviet Union never released
official data on its casualties
- The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of the war in the east - after their victory, Soviet
forces began a long struggle to regain the territory lost to the Germans
- As the Red Army slowly forced the German invaders back, Stalin continued to push for the
invasion of Western Europe - FDR chose General Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead the invasion
- People thought it would be General George Marshall - he was America’s top general &
FDR’s Chief of Staff
- As Army Chief of Staff, Marshall pushed the President to prepare for war by strengthening the
army
- Soon after America’s entry in the war, Marshall called for an invasion of western Europe Winston Churchill later credited Marshall with being “the true organizer of (the Allies’) victory”
- After the war ended in 1945, Marshall resigned - however, President Harry Truman quickly
called him back to public service - as Secretary of State, Marshall launched a massive effort to
rebuild postwar Europe - today that program is known as the Marshall Plan - for his work,
Marshall received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953
- At every conference of Allied leaders after the US entered the war, Marshall pushed for an
attack on the German forces occupying France - Allied planes were already bombing Germany
- In late 1943 the British finally agreed to go along with Marshall’s proposal to launch a land
invasion as well
- The RAF had begun bombing Germany in 1940 - however, the Luftwaffe quickly forced the
British to give up daylight missions for safer but less accurate nighttime raids
- When the Germans started to target cities during the Battle of Britain, the RAF responded in
kind
- It abandoned attempts to pinpoint targets and developed a technique called carpet bombing
(large numbers of bombs are scattered over a wide area) - German cities suffered huge damage
as a result
- Allied bombing of Germany had intensified after the US entered the war
- In spring 1943 the bombing campaign was stepped up yet again in order to soften Germany for
the planned Allied invasion
- By 1944 British and American commanders were conducting coordinated air raids - American
planes bombing by day and the RAF by night - at its height, some 3,000 planes were involved in
this campaign
- A massive buildup of troops began in southern England as American, British, and Canadian
forces were joined by Polish, Dutch, Belgian, and French troops
- In response, the Germans strengthened their defenses along the French coastline
- As they waited for the invasion to begin, German soldiers added machine-gun emplacements,
barbed wire fences on beaches, land and water mines, and underwater obstructions
- Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, the largest landing by sea in history began as some
4,600 invasion craft and warships slipped out of their harbors in southern England
- As the ships crossed the English Channel, about 1,000 RAF bombers pounded German
defenses at Normandy
- Meanwhile, some 23,000 airborne British and American soldiers, in a daring nighttime
maneuver, were dropped behind enemy lines
- At dawn on D-Day (the code name for the day the invasion began), Allied warships in the
Channel began a massive shelling of the coast
- Some 1,000 American planes continued the RAF’s air bombardment - then around 150,000
Allied troops and their equipment began to come ashore along 60 miles of Normandy coast
- Despite the advice of his generals to launch a counterattack, Hitler hesitated - he feared a larger
invasion at the narrowest part of the English Channel near Calais
- Nevertheless, German resistance at Normandy was fierce - at Omaha Beach the Allies suffered
2,000 casualties
- In spite of the heavy casualties of D-Day, within a week a half million men came ashore - by
late July the Allied force in France numbered some 2 million troops
- Bitter fighting followed as the Allies broke through German defenses at Normandy and pushed
across France
- In late August 1944, American troops liberated Paris - British and Canadian forces freed
Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium a few days later
- In mid-September, a combined Allied force attacked the Germans occupying Holland
- At about the same time, Americans crossed the western border of Germany
- The Nazis fought desperately to defend their homeland - after reinforcing the army with
thousands of additional draftees, some as young as 15, they launched a counterattack in Belgium
and Luxembourg in December 1944
- This battle came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge
- As the German attack overwhelmed the American forces and pushed them back, many small
units became cut off from the rest of the army - the soldiers of these isolated units fought
gallantly
- From his headquarters near Paris, Eisenhower ordered more troops to the scene
- The most spectacular of these reinforcement actions was carried out by General Patton - in just
a few days he moved his entire army of 250,000 soldiers from western France to help stop the
German advance
- The Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle in western Europe during WWII and the largest
ever fought by the US Army
- It involved some 600,000 GI s, of whom about 80,000 were killed, wounded, or captured
- German losses totaled about 100,000 troops - after this battle, most Nazi leaders saw that the
war was lost
- In March 1945, as Allied bombers continued to hammer German cities, American ground
forces crossed the Rhine River and advanced toward Berlin from the west - meanwhile, the
Soviets pushed into Germany from east
- The fighting between Germany and Soviet forces from 1941 to 1945 was the greatest conflict
ever fought on a single front
- At any given time it involved more than 9 million troops
- The costs of this struggle were horrific - the 13.6 million Soviet and 3 million German military
killed accounted for more than two-thirds of the total dead for all WWII
- Current research in records of the former Soviet Union places the total of Soviet civilian and
military deaths at 27 million people
- After the hardships their nation had endured, Soviet leaders considered the capture of Berlin,
Germany’s capital, a matter of honor
- In late April 1945 the Soviets fought their way into Berlin - they found the city more than 80
percent destroyed by Allied bombing
- While some Soviet troops attacked Berlin, other elements of the Red Army continued to drive
west - on April 25, they met American troops at the Elbe River
- In Berlin, Hitler had refused to take his generals’ advice to flee as the Soviets closed in on the
city
- Instead he fulfilled a vow he had made in 1939: “I shall stand or fall in this struggle. I shall
never survived the defeat of my people.”
- On May 1, the German government announced that Hitler had committed suicide - a few days
later, on May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered
- American soldiers rejoiced and civilians celebrated V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) at home
as the war in Europe came to an end
- The war was not over yet, however, as Japan was still to be defeated
- In February 1945, two months before the fall of Berlin, FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met at
Yalta, a city in the Soviet Union near the Black Sea
- The purpose of the Yalta Conference was to plan for the postwar world - the leaders agreed to
split Germany into four zones, each under the control of one of the major Allies - the city of
Berlin would be similarly divided
- And, Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan soon after Germany surrendered
*Section 3 - The War in the Pacific
- The bombing of Pearl Harbor was only the first of several Japanese offensives across the
Pacific
- After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese warplanes based in China hit Clark Field, the main
American base in the Philippine Islands
- The American planes sat neatly parked along the runways at Clark Field - as Japanese planes
swept over the airfield, strings of bombs fell towards their targets - planes and buildings were
blown to pieces
- Although news of Pearl Harbor had reached Douglas MacArthur, the commanding general,
the Americans at Clark Field had not expected an immediate attack - about half of MacArthur’s
force was destroyed as it sat on the ground
- Within days, a large Japanese force landed in the Philippines - MacArthur withdrew most of his
troops to the Bataan Peninsula on Manila Bay - there he set up defenses, hoping the navy could
evacuate the army to safety
- For some four months, American and Filipino troops held out on the Bataan Peninsula
- In March, Pres. Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to escape to Australia - the general was reluctant
to abandon his soldiers to the Japanese, but promised, “I shall return”
- When the peninsula’s gallant troops surrendered to Japanese forces in early April, about 2,000
soldiers and nurses escaped to the fortified island of Corregidor in Manila Bay - joining the
fort’s defenders, they fought for another month
- Finally, running low on ammunition and food, over 11,000 Americans and Filipinos
surrendered on May 6, 1942
- As the Bataan Peninsula fell, some 76,000 Filipinos and Americans became prisoners of war Japanese soldiers split the prisoners into groups of 500 and 1,000 and marched them some 60
miles to a railroad
- Already weakened from weeks without enough food or medicine, at least 10,000 prisoners died
during the 6- to 12-day march - many were executed by the guards when they could not keep up
- This incident became known as the Bataan Death March - after the war the general blamed
for organizing the march was one of six Japanese executed for war crimes
- As Japanese forces spread across the Pacific, the battered American navy fought desperately to
stop them
- In May 1942, a largely American naval group fought against a superior enemy fleet in the Coral
Sea
- The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval combat carried out entirely by aircraft - planes
launched from aircraft carriers bombed and strafed the enemy forces more than 70 miles away
- The costs of the five-day battle were high - both sides lost more than half their aircraft
- The US lost the carrier Lexington, and the Yorktown was badly damaged
- But one Japanese carrier sank, another lost most of its planes, and a third was put out of action
- Militarily the battle was probably a draw, but it prevented the Japanese from establishing the
bases they needed to bomb Australia, thus blocking the invasion of that nation
- There were two critical battles that took place in the Pacific at the height of the war in Europe Midway Island, near Hawaii, and Guadalcanal, in the western Pacific near the Coral Sea, were
small but strategic islands
- In mid-1942, the battles for these islands changed the course of the war in the Pacific
- Despite his success at Pearl Harbor, Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto believed that
American naval power still held the key to victory or defeat in Asia
- He hoped to destroy what remained of the Pacific Fleet by luring it into battle at Midway
Island, NW of Hawaii
- Yamamoto committed a large part of Japan’s navy to this plan - he correctly believed that
American admiral Chester Nimitz would use all his resources to protect Midway, which was
vital to the defense of Hawaii
- The Battle of Midway erupted on June 4, 1942 - it was fought entirely from the air
- The American planes found the Japanese carriers at a vulnerable time - the Japanese were still
loading bombs onto their planes
- The Americans swiftly demolished three of four Japanese carriers as bombs stacked up on their
decks exploded in the attack - the fourth was destroyed trying to escape
- The sinking of these carriers, plus the loss of some 250 planes they carried, was a devastating
blow to Japanese naval power - after the Battle of Midway, Japan was unable to launch any more
offensive operations
- The victory at Midway allowed the Allies to take the offensive in the Pacific - their first goal
was to capture Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands
- When more than 11,000 marines landed on the island in August 1942, some 2,200 Japanese
fled into the jungle
- Months of brutal fighting followed
- The Battle of Guadalcanal provided the marines with their first taste of jungle warfare - as
they slogged through swamps, forded rivers, and hacked through tangles of vines, they
frequently encountered enemy units
- The marines made easy targets for Japanese snipers hidden in the underbrush or in the tops of
palm trees
- When Japan’s forces finally slipped off the island in February 1943, their withdrawal went
undetected until the marines discovered their empty boats on the beach
- From Guadalcanal, American forces began island-hopping (a strategy of selectively attacking
or bypassing specific enemy-held islands)
- Both sides suffered heavy casualties before the Allies won the war in 1945
- In 1943 and 1944 the Allies pushed north from Australia and west across the central Pacific
- As forces under General MacArthur and Admiral William Halsey leapfrogged through the
Solomon Islands, other Americans led by Admiral Nimitz began a similar campaign in the
Gilbert Islands
- After seizing the island of Tarawa, Nimitz used it to launch bombing raids on Japan’s bases in
the Marshall Islands - by February 1944, these attacks had crippled Japanese air power
- From the Marshalls, Nimitz captured parts of the Mariana Islands in June
- American long-range bombers were able to reach Japan from this location - by the end of 1944,
American planes were dropping tons of explosives on Japanese cities
- In mid-October, some 160,000 American troops invaded the Philippine island of Leyte - after
the beach was secure, General MacArthur dramatically waded ashore from a landing craft - as
news cameras recorded the historic event, MacArthur proclaimed, “People of the Philippines, I
have returned.”
- While American troops fought their way inland, the greatest naval battle in world history
developed off the coast
- More than 280 warships were engaged during the 3-day Battle of Leyte Gulf
- This battle saw the first use of kamikazes (suicide planes) - Japanese pilots deliberately
crashed their aircraft, which were heavily loaded with bombs, into their targets
- The Japanese were badly beaten and their navy was virtually destroyed
- Japanese land forces continued to resist - in the more than two months it took American forces
to control Leyte, some 80,000 Japanese defenders were killed - fewer than 1,000 Japanese
surrendered
- The battle for Manila, the Philippines’ capital city, on the island of Luzon, was equally hard
fought
- The nearly month-long struggle left most of Manila in ruins and some 100,000 Filipino
civilians dead
- Not until June 1945 were the Philippines securely in Allied hands
- The Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest of the war - the island’s steep rocky slopes
were honeycombed with caves and tunnels - more than 600 guns, many encased in concrete
bunkers, were naturally protected by land
- In November 1944 American bombers began to pound Iwo Jima from the air - for 74 days
American planes and warships poured nearly 7,000 tons of bombs and more than 20,000 shells
onto Iwo Jima’s defenders
- In mid-February 1945, marines stormed the beaches from the ships offshore - they encountered
furious resistance
- After 3 days of combat, the marines had advanced only about 700 yards inland - eventually
nearly 110,000 American troops were involved in the campaign
- Although fewer than 25,000 Japanese opposed the Americans, it took almost a month for the
marines to secure the island - the enemy fought virtually to the last defender - only 216 Japanese
were taken prisoner
- The American forces suffered an estimated 25,000 casualties in capturing this 14-square-mile
island
- 27 Medals of Honor were awarded for actions on Iwo Jima, more than in any other single
operation of the war
- Admiral Nimitz described the island as a place where “uncommon valor was a common virtue”
- The Battle of Okinawa , fought from April to June 1945, was equally bloody
- Nearly 100,000 defenders occupied this island, which was little more than 350 miles from
Japan itself
- The Japanese troops on Okinawa knew they were the last obstacle to an Allied invasion of the
Japanese home islands - many had pledged to fight to the death to prevent their homeland from
falling
- The American and British forces amassed at Okinawa was second in size only to the Normandy
invasion in Europe - some 1,300 warships and more than 180,000 combat troops were gathered
to drive the enemy off the isle
- Japanese pilots flew nearly 2,000 kamikaze attacks against this fleet - on the island, defenders
made equally desperate banzai charges (attacks designed to kill as many of the enemy as
possible while dying in battle)
- In June, when the Japanese resistance finally ended after almost three months, only 7,200
defenders remained to surrender - for American forces, nearly 50,000 casualties made the Battle
of Okinawa the costliest engagement of the Pacific war - but now finally the way was open for
an invasion of Japan
- After the grueling battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, American soldiers began to prepare
themselves for the invasion of Japan - they knew how costly such an invasion would be
- Unknown to them however, work was nearly done on a bomb that would make the invasion
unnecessary
- The story begins in August 1939, when FDR received a letter from Albert Einstein, a brilliant
Jewish physicist who had sought refuge in America from the Nazis
- In his letter, Einstein suggested that an incredibly powerful new type of bomb could be built he hinted that the Germans were already at work on such a weapon
- FDR, concerned that Germany not develop this weapon first, organized the top secret
Manhattan Project to develop such a bomb
- Scientists had already succeeded in splitting the nucleus of the uranium atom - however, to
make an atomic bomb they had to create a controlled chain reaction
- In such a reaction, particles released from the splitting of one atom would cause another atom
to break apart, and so on
- The theory was that the energy released when so many atoms were split would produce a
massive explosion
- In 1942, Enrico Fermi, a scientist who had left Fascist Italy, accomplished such a chain
reaction in a laboratory at the University of Chicago
- On July 16, 1945, Manhattan Project scientists field-tested Fermi’s work - in the desert of New
Mexico they detonated the world’s first atomic bomb
- With a blinding flash of light, the explosion blew a huge crater in the earth and shattered
windows some 125 miles away
- As he watched, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the building of the bomb, remembered
the words of the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu holy book: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer
of worlds”
- Once the bomb was ready, the question became whether or not to use it - other courses of
action existed for bringing an end to the war
- A massive invasion of Japan, a naval blockade, continued conventional bombing, or even a
demonstration of the new weapon on some deserted island might show the Japanese the atomic
bomb’s awesome power
- An Interim Committee, formed in the spring on ‘45, debated the issue - but, the heavy
American casualties at Iwo Jima and Okinawa were a factor in the committee’s support for using
the bomb
- The final decision, however, rested with the President - that burden fell on Harry S. Truman,
President for barely three months after FDR’s sudden death in April 1945
- Truman had no difficulty making up his mind on the decision, and he never regretted dropping
the bomb
- “You should do your weeping at Pearl Harbor,” he said to his critics in later years
- On August 6, 1945, an American plane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a city in
southern Japan and the site of a large army base - no one knows for sure how many people were
killed, but the official Japanese estimate is that 140,000 died in the explosion or within a few
months from burns or radiation poisoning
- Thousands of others survived, but with horrible burns - some 90 percent of the city’s buildings
were damaged or totally destroyed
- Three days later a second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, produced similar devastation,
disfigurement, and death
- The Japanese people were stunned by these developments
- On August 14, the government of Japan accepted the American terms for surrender
- The next day Americans celebrated V-J Day (Victory in Japan Day)
- The formal surrender agreement was signed on September 2, 1945, in a ceremony aboard the
U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay - the long and destructive war had finally come to an end
*Section 4 - The Holocaust
- When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, chief among his goals was the removal of so-called
“non-Aryans,” and in particular Jews
- No persecution of Jews in world history equals the extent and brutality of the Holocaust (Nazi
Germany’s systematic murder of European Jews)
- In all, some 6 million Jews, about 2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population, had been massacred by
end of WWII
- Some 5 to 6 million other people also died in Nazi captivity
- Theories that European peoples, so-called Aryans, were superior to Middle Eastern peoples
called Semites had developed in Germany in the mid-1800s
- By the 1880s anti-Semitism had come to mean hostility toward Jews - when the Nazi party
gained control of Germany’s government in 1933, anti-Semitism became the official policy of
the nation
- Under Nazi rule, German citizens were encouraged to stop patronizing Jewish businesses
- In 1935, the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews of their German citizenship
and forbidding marriage between Jews and non-Jews
- In 1937 and 1938 the Nazis began a program to “Aryanize” Jewish businesses - they required
Jews to register their property and dismissed Jewish employees and managers
- Jewish doctors were banned from treating non-Jews
- All German people had to carry identity cards - the Nazi government marked Jews’ cards with
a red letter ‘J’ and gave all Jews new middle names (“Sarah” for women and “Israel” for men)
- When the Nazis came to power, they organized the SA (a police unit charged with silencing
opposition to Nazis)
- Later, Hitler formed the SS (an elite guard that became the private army of the Nazi party)
- In addition, a Secret State Police, or Gestapo, was formed to identify and pursue those people
who did not follow the new laws of the Nazi regime
- Political enemies were thrown into hastily built “camps” in empty warehouses and factories
guarded by SS troops
- Typically, concentration camps are places where prisoners of war and political prisoners are
confined, usually under harsh conditions - but, the Nazi camps soon held many other people
considered by them to be “undesirable,” including the homeless, homosexuals, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, and persons w/ mental & physical disabilities
- By the late 1930s, Gypsies were also being imprisoned
- On the night of November 9-10, 1938, Nazi thugs throughout Germany and Austria looted and
destroyed Jewish stores, houses, and synagogues - the incident became known as Kristallnacht
(“Night of the Broken Glass”)
- Mass arrests of Jews in the area followed
- From 1933 through 1937 about 130,000 Jews fled Germany - the Nazis encouraged this
emigration because it helped to achieve their plan
- At first, most refugees merely moved to other European nations - as the numbers grew,
however, Jews began to go to Palestine, Latin America, and the United States
- In 1939, the invasion of Poland brought some 2 million Jews under German control - in
Warsaw over 350,000 Jews, about 30% of the Polish capital’s population, were rounded up and
confined in less than 3% of the city’s area
- The Warsaw ghetto was sealed off by a wall topped with barbed wire - guards prevented
movement between the ghetto and the rest of the city
- Hunger, overcrowding, and a lack of sanitation brought on disease - the death rate soared as
Jews were placed in ghettos throughout Poland and Eastern Europe
- Special forces called the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) were sent to Poland in 1939
- There they systematically murdered members of Poland’s upper class, along with
intellectuals, priests, and influential Jews
- In 1941 the Einsatzgruppen carried out Hitler’s orders to eliminate Communist political
leaders and Jews during the invasion of the Soviet Union
- While Hitler accepted mass murder by firing squad as appropriate for a war zone, he felt
the method was not suitable for nations already conquered
- In January 1942, government officials met at the Wannsee Conference outside Berlin
to announce a plan for what one Nazi leader called the “final solution to the Jewish
question”
- The plan called for establishing a number of special concentration camps in rural areas
of Germany & elsewhere
- There, the genocide (deliberate destruction of Europe’s Jewish population) was to be
carried out
- In 1941 the Nazis had begun experimenting on Jews and Soviet prisoners of war to
determine the most efficient way of killing people - they chose a poison gas, called
Zyklon B, to be administered in specially designed chambers disguised as showers
- December 1941 a “model” operation was opened in western Poland - the first day some
2,300 Jews were killed
- Eventually the Nazis built six camps in Poland - these death camps existed only for
mass murder
- Jews were crammed into trains and transported to these extermination centers - most
Jews did not know where they were going when they boarded these trains
- On arrival at the camps, prisoners were organized into a line and quickly inspected - the
elderly, most women with children, and those who looked too weak to work were herded
into gas chambers and killed
- Guards forced prisoners to carry the dead to the crematoria, where the bodies were
burned in huge ovens
- Those who escaped immediate death at the extermination camps endured almost
unbearable conditions - men and women alike had their heads shaved and a registration
number tattooed on their arms
- Given only one set of clothes, prisoners were interred in crowded, unheated barracks there were no bathrooms or beds - food was usually a thin, foul-tasting soup made with
rotten vegetables
- Diseases swept through the camps and claimed many who were weakened by harsh
labor and the lack of food
- Periodic “selections” took place where the weak and ill were sent to the gas chamber
- About 43,000 prisoners perished at Germany’s Buchenwald labor camp, between 1937
and 1945
- At Auschwitz, a death camp in Poland, more victims were murdered than anywhere
else - as many as 1.5 million people, some 90 percent of them Jews
- Some Jews, both in and outside the camps, fiercely resisted the Nazis
- In April 1943, the Warsaw ghetto revolted against deportation to the death camp
Treblinka
- For some 27 days about 700 Jews armed with little more than pistols and homemade
bombs held out against more than 2,000 Germans with tanks
- Revolts also erupted in the camps themselves - in August 1943, rioting Jews damaged
Treblinka so badly that it had to be closed
- Escape was the most common form of resistance - most attempts failed, but a few
people managed to bring word of the death camps to the outside world
- American newspapers showed little interest in the Holocaust during the war years
- Finally, in January 1944, over the objection of the State Department, FDR created the
War Refugee Board (WRB) to try to help people threatened with murder by the Nazis
- In a short time, its programs helped save some 200,000 lives - with WRB funding, for
example, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews by
issuing them special Swedish passports
- Wallenberg disappeared into Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe after the war - after he
disappeared, Congress made him an honorary U.S. citizen for his humanitarian war work
- As Allied armies advanced in late 1944, the Nazis abandoned concentration camps
outside Germany and moved their prisoners to camps on German soil
- In May 1945, as Germany collapsed, camp guards fled and American troops for the first
time were able to witness the horrors of the Holocaust
- A young soldier described the conditions he discovered as he entered the barracks at
Buchenwald:
“The odor was so bad I backed up, but I looked at a bottom bunk and there I saw one
man. He was too weak to get up; he could just barely turn his head...He looked like a
skeleton; and his eyes were deep set. He didn’t utter a sound; he just looked at me with
those eyes, and they still haunt me today.”
- Sickened by the death camps, in November 1945 the Allies placed 24 leading Nazis on
trial for crimes against humanity - at the Nuremberg Trials 12 of them received the
death sentence
- No longer could war criminals escape punishment by saying they were only “following
orders”