Download Student ppt Chapter 28

America in a World at War
I. War on Two Fronts
Containing the Japanese
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Allied territories begin to fall shortly after Pearl Harbor
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General Douglas MacArthur
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Admiral Chester Nimitz
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Victorious Battles for U.S.
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Gavutu
With help from Aussies and Kiwis… US began long, slow
march towards Japan
Holding off the Germans
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In Europe US had less control over military
operations than in Pacific
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George C. Marshall, supported a plan for a
major Allied invasion of France across the
English Channel in the Spring of 1943
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Roosevelt decides to support the British plan,
against advice of advisors
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African difficulties
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Holding off the Germans Continued
General George S. Patton
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Russians able to hold off huge German offensive in the winter of
1943
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First U.S. European Invasion: Sicily
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America and the Holocaust
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As early as 1942 America had evidence of Nazi
extermination of Jews, poles, gypsies, homosexuals and
communists
American government continually resisted almost all plans
to rescue individuals from Nazi death camps
U.S. Planes flew missions within miles of Auschwitz:
Military refused to destroy crematoriums… “militarily
unfeasible”
Jews escaping refused entry into the United States
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Anti-Semite Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long
Allied forces insisted the most important thing they could
do to combat Nazi genocide was concentrate all forces in
an attack against Germany
II. The American People in Wartime
A. Prosperity
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WWII’s most profound
impact on American Life
was the ending of the
Depression
Most important agent in
recovery: federal spending
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The War and the West
Henry J. Kaiser
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US gov’t created large manufacturing facilities in California and
elsewhere to serve the needs of it’s military
Gov’t made almost $40 billion in capital investments
Henry J. Kaiser
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Western cities grow in size
Labor and the War
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war created a serious labor shortage
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Civilian workforce increased by almost 20 percent
during the war… groups of people began working
who before it was considered in-appropriate to work
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Labor and the War
Continued
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Increase in union membership, but
increase in federal restrictions on
work stoppages
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Despite these plans, nearly 15,000
work stoppages during the war
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Smith-Connally Act … passed despite
FDR’s veto… required unions to wait
thirty days before striking and
empowered the president to seize a
struck war plant
Stabilizing the Boom
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from fear of deflation (not enough currency, low
prices) to inflation (too much, high prices) during the
war
Anti-Inflation Act: gave president the authority to
freeze agricultural prices, wages, salaries and rents
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Government Spending
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*Fake Smile*
Mobilizing Production
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one failed agency after another finally leads to War
Production Board (WPB)
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WPB’s authority is transferred to Office of War
Mobilization (OWM)… only slightly more successful
Despite administrative problems, economy met all of the
nation’s critical war needs
Development of synthetic rubber over natural rubber
USA output was twice of all the Axis countries
combined
The Internment of Japanese
Americans
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WWII different from WWI … not as much propaganda or hatred directed
towards Europe
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Different attitude towards Asian enemy than towards European enemy
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Despite cultural assimilation, belief was widespread that Japanese
Americans could never become “real” Americans
Leaders make scathing and unfounded comments
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The Internment of Japanese
Americans
Continued
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War Relocation Authority (WRA)
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Japanese Americans lost everything
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Nisei army fights with high distinction in Europe
Korematsu v. U.S.
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1988 Japanese Americans win compensation for
their loses
Chinese Americans and the War
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Relations increased due to Alliance with China
Congress finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion
Acts which had barred Chinese immigration
since 1892
4,000 Chinese women entered the United States
in the first years after the war… mail order brides
Improving image
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The Retreat from Reform
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replacing “Dr. New Deal” with “Dr.
Win the War”
Republicans gaining ground in
Washington
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1944 Election
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III. The Defeat of the Axis
The Liberation of France
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By 1944 American and British bombers were attacking German
industrial centers and other targets around the clock
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Air battles weakened the Luftwaffe
American forces obtain an “Ultra” machine… able to crack German
code
June 6, 1944: D-Day
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Slow advance
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The Liberation of France
Continued
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Battle of the Bulge
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Surrounding all corners
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Soviets made strong advances in the East… Oder River
Omar Bradley moving in from west… Cologne
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Montgomery pushed into Northern Germany with a million troops
Taking Berlin
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April 30, 1945 Hitler killed himself in his bunker in the capital
May 8, 1945 remaining German forces surrender unconditionally
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The Pacific Offensives
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Feb 1944 Chester Nimitz wins a series of
victories in the Marshall Islands and cracked
the outer perimeter of the Japanese Empire
American submarines destroying Japanese
shipping and crippling the nation’s domestic
economy
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Land battles encounter frustration
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The Pacific Offensives Continued
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Decisive battle for Pacific in the Pacific
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June 1944, enormous American armada struck the heavily fortified Mariana Islands,
Tinian, Guam and Siapan
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Oct 1944 General MacArthur landed in the Philippines
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Very difficult for troops to advance on land
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only island U.S. is able to capture is tiny Iwo Jima
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Okinawa: taken at the cost of 50,000 troops
What next?
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hard to fight troops on land
BUT Japanese has no navy left
July 1945, Tokyo firebombed: 80,000 dead
US Navy able to shell coastal targets in Japan from offshore
Emperor Hirohito gives directions to military leaders to make surrender negotiations…
could not persuade military leaders to give up
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would moderates have prevailed?
The Manhattan Project
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1939 reports reach U.S. military intelligence that
the Germans are attempting to produce atomic
fission in uranium
Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi – physicists from
Europe, exile to the U.S.
From 1941 on, gov’t secretly poured $2 billion
dollars into the Manhattan Project… massive
scientific effort conducted at hidden laboratories
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J. Robert Oppenheimer in charge of creating the
bomb
War in Europe ends just before they are ready to
test the first bomb
July 16, 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico: first
atomic explosion in history
Bomb instantly moves from a scientific project to
a weapon of war
Atomic Warfare
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Roosevelt dies in office in April 1945… News
of explosion reaches Truman (Truman had no
knowledge of weapon prior to FDR’s death)
Truman issues warning to Japan, signed jointly
by Britain: “unconditional surrender or face
complete devastation”
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Should the bomb have been dropped?
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Atomic Warfare Continued
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Truman orders the use of atomic weapons on Japan
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August 6, 1945 Enola Gay drops atomic weapon on Hiroshima… within moments…
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Japanese government, stunned, unable to agree to a response
August 8, 1945 Russia declares war on Japan
August 9, 1945 another atomic bomb dropped… Nagasaki
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September 2, 1945 Japanese surrender signed aboard American battleship Missouri
In the end…
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“This thing must not be permitted to exist on this earth. We must
not be the most hated and feared people in the world.”