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Chapter 35: America in World War II, 1941-45
p.821 - 847
Creating the Armed Forces
- in 1939, majority of 200k in armed forces were employed as MP’s, engaged in
tasks such as patrolling the Mexican border or occupying colonial possessions,
such as the Philippines
- October 16, 1940, National Registration Day, all men b/t 21-36 were legally
obligated to register for military service; 2 weeks later, 5000 local draft boards
began to draw the first numbers to send men off to camps for 1 year of training
- After US entered war, draft age lowered to 18 and local boards were instructed to
choose first from the youngest
- 1/3 of men rejected – physically unfit, 1 million w/ neuropsychiatric disorders or
emotional problems; functionally illiterate
- officer corps whose top ranking members were from the Command and General
Staff School at Ft. Leavenworth were highly professional, politically
conservative, and personally autocratic
o Gen MacArthur admired the discipline of the German army and
disparaged political democracy
o Gen Eisenhower, projected a new and contrasting spirit
- During first years of WWII, Americans at home heard little about the human
devastation, but GI’s experienced firsthand its brutality; many succumbed to
“battle fatigue” from prolonged stress of combat – more than 1 million suffered at
one time or another from debilitating psychiatric symptoms
o Thousands crack, inflicting wounds on themselves in order to be sent
home
o Most deserters were sentenced to hard labor in military stockades
o Only in 1944 did the army devise a rotation system to relieve exhausted
soldiers
Women Enter the Military
- before WWII women served in the armed forces mainly as nurses and clerical
workers
- With approach of WWII, army drafted a bill, sponsored by Edith Nourse Rogers
(R-Mass), creating in May 1942 the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, later
changed to Women’s Army Corps (WAC)
- Later estab women’s division of navy (WAVES), the Women’s Airforce Service
Pilots, and Marine Corps Women’s Reserve
- Overall 350k women serve in WWII – were better educated and more skilled than
the average soldier
- Gov’t feared the spread of “immorality” among women in armed forces and
closely monitored their conduct
o Advised to avoid alcohol and abstain from promiscuous behavior
- were also racially segregated
Old Practices and New Horizons
- hundreds of thousands of African Americans join army – were segregated into all
black regiments commanded by white officers; Sec of War Henry Stimson
refused to challenge policy
- 1 million serve during WWII majority served in Signal, Engineer, and
Quartermaster Corps, mainly in construction or stevedore work
- Marine Corps and Coast Guard agreed to end their historic exclusion of African
Americans
- Encountered discrimination everywhere – even blood banks kept blood
segregated, although a black physician, Dr. Charles Drew, had invented the
process for storing plasma
- Army also grouped Japanese Americans into segregated units, sending most to
fight far from the Pacific theater
o Many Nisei soldiers who knew Jpanaese served state side as interpreters
and translators
- Many Indian peoples left reservations for the first time – 25k serve
- Most soldiers looked back at the war as the greatest experience they would ever
know – met fellow Americans from every part of the country and recognized for
the first time in their lives the “bigness and wholeness of the US”
Overseas Occupation
- children welcomed the GI’s who brought candy and gum; civilians in areas not
controlled by Axis powers often resented the presence of US troops whose
demands for entertainment could turn their communities into red light zones for
drinking and prostitution
- US soldiers enjoyed a standard of living that surpassed that of both the military
and civilian populations of Europe
Prisoners of War
- approx 120k became prisoners of war
- those captured by Germans were taken back to camps – olfags for officers or
stalags for enlisted men where they sat out the remainder of the war
- conditions for POW’s in the Pacific were abysmal
o of 20k Americans captured in Philippines early in war, only 40% survived
to return home
o at least 6000 US and Filipino prisoners died on the notorious 80 mile
Bataan Death March in 1942
o Japanese army felt only contempt for POW’s; its own soldiers evaded
capture by kelling themselves
The World at War
- during the first year of declared war, the Allies remained on the defensive
- Allies enjoyed several important advantages: vast natural resources and a skilled
workforce w/ sufficient reserves to accelerate the production of weapons and
ammo; the determination of millions of antifascists throughout Europe and Asia;
and the capacity of the Soviet Union to endure immense losses
Soviets Halt Nazi Drive
- weapons/tactics were radically different from those of WWI
- WWII was war of offensive maneuvers punctuated by surprise attacks
-
Chief weapons were tanks and planes
Also of major importance were artillery and explosives
Communications improvements (two way radios and radiotelephony) permitted
commanders to stay in contace w/ division leaders
- Early on, Hitler used these methods to seize the advantage purposefully creating
terror among the stricken populations of western Europe as he routed their armies
- Royal Air Force fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill in the Battle of Britain,
frustrating Hitlers hopes of invading England
- Summer 1941, Hitler turned attention to the East, hoping to invade and conquer
the Soviet Union before the US entered the war
o Had to delay invasion to come to the support of Mussolini in North Africa
and Greece
o Attack on Russia did not come until June 22, 6 weeks later than planned
and too late
- From June to Sept, Hitler’s forces overran the Red Army, killing/capturing 3
million
o Soviet civilians rallied, cutting German supply lines
o Red Amry launched a massive counterattack, catching the freezing
German troops off guard – for the first time, the Nazi war machine
suffered a major setback
- Summer 1942 – German troops headed toward Crimea and rich oil fields of the
Caucasus
- Hitler decides to attack Stalingrad – Soviets suffered more casualties during the
battles than US did during the entire war
o Intense house to house and street fighting and a massive Soviet
counteroffensive took an even greater toll on Nazi’s
o By Feb 1943, the German Sixth Army had met defeat – more than 100k
soldiers surrender
- in retreat but plotting one last desperate attempt to halt the Red Army, Germans
threw most of their remaining armored vehicles into action at Kursk in Ukraine in
July 1943
o quickly developed into greatest land battle in history
o 2 million troops and 6000 tanks
o Germans decisively lost battle
- Soviet Union had begun to recover from early losses
o Assisted by US Lend-Lease program, by 1942, Soviets were outproducing
Germany in many types of weapons and supplies
o Nazi officers and civilians began to doubt that Hitler could win – Soviet
victories had turned the tide of the war
The Allied Offensive
- spring 1942, Germany, Itlay, Japan commanded a territory extending from France
to the Pacific; controlled central Europe and large section of Soviet Union; some
China and SW Pacific; but momentum was flagging
- US outdid Germany in production of landing craft and amphibious vehicles – 2 of
the most important innovations of the war
o German air force limited to defensive action
o US and GB had the trucks and jeeps to field fully mobile armies
- Soviets repeatedly appealed for creation of a Second Front, an allied offensive
against Germany from the West; alliles instead focused on securing North Africa
and then on an invasion of Italy, hoping to move from there into Central Europe
- October 23-24, 1942 – El Alamein in deserts of Western Egypt; Brits halt major
offensive by the German Afrika Korps, headed by Gen Edwin Rommel “Desert
Fox”
o Destroyed the Italian North African Army and much of Germnay’s Afrike
Korps
o US entered war in Europe as part of Operation Torch, the landing of GB
and US troops on the coast of Morocco and Algeria in Nov 1942; largest
amphibious landing to that date
o W/ surrender of 250k Germans and Italians in Tunisia in May 1943, allies
controlled North Africa and had secure position in Mediterranean
- during N African campaign, Allies announced that they would accept nothing less
than the unconditional surrender of their enemies
o FDR and Churchill met in Casablanca and ruled out any possibility of
negotiation
o Stalin did not attend – criticized the policy fearing that it would only
increase the enemy’s determination to fight to the end
- Allied aerial bombing further increased pressure on Germany
o Used B-17 Flying Fortress, described as a “humane” weapon capable of
hitting specific military targets; but were inaccurate
o US bombed during daylight, GB bombed at night
o Left 20% of Germany’s total residential area in ruins
o Worst raid of war – 650k incendiary bombs dropped on the city of
Dresden destroyed 8 sq mi and killed 135k civilians w/ no military value
Allied Invasion of Europe
- summer 1943, Allies began to advance on S Italy
- July 10, GB and US troops stormed Sicily and took island in mid August
- King Vittorio Emmanuel dismissed Mussolini calling him the “most despised amn
in Italy” – Italians celebrated in the streets
- Italy surrendered to Allies on Sept 8
- Hitler sent new divisions into Italy, occupied the N peninsula and effectively
stalled the Allies
- Elsewhere in Europe, armed uprisings against the Nazis spread
o Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto
o Organized groups of men, women, and children risked their leves to
distribute antifacist propaganda
- Stalin continues to push for a second front
- Stalled in Italy, Allies prepared in early 1944 for Operation Overlord, a campaign
to retake the continent with a decisive counterattack through France
o US and GB forces filled the southern half of England with military camps
o Operation began with a preinvasion air assault that dropped 76k tons of
bombs on Nazi targets
o Invasion finally began on “D-Day” June 6, 1944 – Normandy – 175k
troops and 20k vehicles
o Germans responded slowly, anticipating an Allied strike at Calais instead
o 2500 troops died
o in next 6 weeks, almost 1 million more Allied soldiers came ashore
o as fighting continued all eyes turned to Paris – bombers pounded factories
producing Gemrna ammo
o General Charles de Gaulle arrives in Paris on August 25 to become
president of the reestablished French Republic
The High Cost of European Victory
- Sept 1944, Allied commanders searched for a strategy to end the war quickly
- In final, desperate effort to reverse the Allied momentum, Hitler directed his last
reserves, 250k men at Allied lines in the Belgian forest of the Ardennes – Battle
of the Bulge
o Germans took Allies by surprise, driving them back 50 miles – bloodiest
single campaign Americans had been involved in since the Battle of
Gettysburg, exhausted the German capacity for counterattack
o After Christman 1944, Germans fell back
- March 1945 Allies rolled across the Rhine and took the Ruhr valley
- Defense of Germany now hopeless
- Germans surrender May 8 – Hitler already dead – suicide
The War in Asia and the Pacific
- War that had begun w/ Pearl Harbor rapidly escalated into scattered fighting
across a region of the world far larger than all of Europe, stretching from SE Asia
to the Aleutian Islands
- 6 mos after Pearl Harbor, US began to regain naval superiority in the central
Pacific and halt Japanese expansion
- May 7,8 – Battle of the Coral Sea – Carrier duel w/ air battles – US blocks
Japanese threat to Australia
- Month later Japanese fleet converged on Midway Island – US strategists, thanks
to specialists who had broken Japanese codes knew when and where the Japanese
planned to attack
o 2 carrier fleets separated by hundreds of miles clash at the Battle of
Midway on June 4 – US planes sink 4 of Japans vital aircraft carriers and
destroyed hundreds of planes ending Japans offensive threat to Hawaii and
the west coast of the US
- Japanese pull back to their offensive perimeter and concentrate remaining forces
- US command divided b/t MacArthur in SW Pacific and Admiral Nimitz in C
Pacific needed to develop a counterstrategy to strangle the Japanese import based
economy and to retake strategic islands closer to the homeland
- Allies launch counteroffensive on Solomon Islands and Papua, near New Guinea
o US and Australian ground forces fought together in jungles of Papua;
marines prepared to attack the Japanese stronghold of Guadalcanal –
victorious in Feb 1943
- for next 2 years, navy and marines use “island hopping” to capture a series of
important atolls from Japanese and open path to Japan
o Tarawa, November 1943 in Gilbert Islands
o 1944 – Guam, Saipan, Tinian – w/ in air range of the Japanese home
islands
o Battle of Philippine Sea – June 1944
o Oct 1944 – MacArthur led force of 250k to retake Philippines
 Japanese navy threw itself at US invaders in the Battle of Leyte
Gulf – largest naval battle in history
o Marines wage successful battle on island of Iwo Jima
o Battle of Okinawa – Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945 – largest amphibious
operation by US in Pacific – met by waves of Kamikazes – more US died
or were wounded here than at Normandy
- GB and US press for quick unconditional surrender – special reasons –
determined to prevent Red Army from taking any territories held by the Japanese
– set stage for use of atom bomb
The Last Stages of War
- FDR wanted both to cursh the Axis powers and estab a system of collective
securoity to prevent another world war
- During 1944-45 the Big Three met to hammer out the shpae of the postwar world
The Holocaust
- the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” – Hitler ordered the systematic
extermination of not only Jews but Gypsies, homosexuals, and others of inferior
races – accelerated after 1941
- US gov’t released little information on what came to known as the Holocaust
- FDR and advisors maintained that the liberation of European Jews depended
primarily on a speedy and total Allied victory
o US Jews pleaded for strike against the rail lines leading to the notorious
extermination camp in Auschwitz
o Gov’t viewed civilian rescue as a diversion of precious resources
The Yalta Conference
- FDR realized that neither GB or the Soviet Union intended to abide by any code
of conduct that comproised its national security or conflicted wi/ its economic
interests in other nations or in colonial territories
- Churchill and Stalin reached new agreement that projected their respective
spheres of influence over the future of central Europe
- Feb 1945 – FDR held his last meeting w/ Churchill and Stalin at Yalta
o Was clear the spheres of influence principle guided all ntegtiations
o Neither the US nor GB did more than object to the Soviet Unions plan to
retain the Baltic states and part of Poland as a buffer zone to protect it
against any future German aggression
o GB planned to regain its empire in Asia
o US hoped to hold several Pacific islands in order to monitor any military
resurgance in Japan
o FDR announced to Congress that meeting was great success
- FDR dies April 12, 1945 – cast dark shadow over all hopes for long term peaceful
solutions to global problems
o Did not live to see German surrender on May 8
The Atomic Bomb
- FDR’s death made cooperation among Allies more difficult
- Harry S. Truman lacked diplomatic experience and FDR’s finesse
o Had no intention of making concessions to Soviets
o Negotiations at Potsdam Conference lacked spirited cooperation
- Potsdam Conference
o US, GB, and Soviets had huge agenda including reparations, the future of
Germany, and the status of other Axis powers
o Agreed to demand Japan’s unconditional surrender and try Nazi leaders as
war criminals
o During meetings Truman first learned of successful testing of atomic
bomb
 Sec of State Stimson received cable reading “Babies satisfactorily
born”
 US diplomats concluded they no longer needed assistance from
Soviets to bring war to end
- US diplomats knew the emperor of Japan was prepared to end fighting if Allies
would set aside the stipulation of unconditional surrender
- Truman intended to use the bomb regardless
- August 3, 1945 – Japan wired its refusal to surrender
o 3 days later, Army Air Force B-29 bomber Enola Gay drops bomb on
Hiroshima – 80k dead
o Japan surrendered on August 14 after a second bomb destroys Nagasaki
- decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan remains one of the most
controversial aspects of the war
- no question however that the use of nuclear force did strengthen the US
diplomatic mission