Chapter 17



Chapter 17

World War II: The Road to War

Section 1

The Rise of Dictators

Dictators ruled through totalitarian rule.

Totalitarian - the government exerts total control over a nation, dominating every aspect of life, using

terror to suppress individual rights and silences all forms of opposition

Forms of totalitarian governments in Europe included Communism in Russian and Fascism in Germany

and Italy

Fascism - emphasizes the importance of the nation or an ethnic group

Historically, Communism and Fascism are fierce enemies

Stalin’s Soviet Union

When Stalin took over, after the death of Lenin, he implemented a series of five-year plans to modernize

agriculture and build new industries

Combined family farms into huge collective farms owned by the state.

When faced with resistance, Stalin forced farmers from their land

Confiscated crops and send 5 million peasants in to labor camps

Food shortages required rationing

More successful in rapid industrialization

Ignoring basic needs of his people, standard of living fell sharply

To cement his political control, Stalin conducted political purges

Purge - the process of removing enemies and undesirable individuals from power

Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy

WWI veteran, dissatisfied with how Italy was treated in the Treaty of Versailles

Formed the revolutionary Fascist Party

Used gangs of thugs called Blackshirts to terrorize anyone who opposed him

Suspended elections, outlawed other political parties, formed a dictatorship

Gives himself the title of Il Duce, “the leader”

Dreamed of a new Roman Empire

Conquered Ethiopia

Hitler’s Nazi Germany

WWI veteran, enraged by the treatment of Germany after the war

Turned the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in to the Nazi Party

Nazism - Hitler’s form of fascism based on German nationalism and racial superiority

While imprisoned, wrote Mein Kampf “My Struggle”

Outlined Nazi philosophy

His plans for Germany

Criticized Germany’s Jewish population for the country’s WWI defeat

In defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler wanted to

Strengthen Germany’s military

Expand beyond its borders

Purify the “Aryan race” by remove undesirable groups

The Nazi Party, with Hitler as its leader became the largest party in the Reichstag, lower house of

Germany’s parliament

Hitler comes in second in Germany’s 1932 presidential election

Hitler is named German Chancellor, head of Germany’s government

Suspends freedom of speech and freedom of press

Uses Nazi thugs, Brownshirts, to silence opposition

In August 1934, after Von Hindenburg (German president) dies Hitler becomes Chancellor and

President

Gives himself the title of Der Fuhrer, “the Leader”

Violates the Treaty of Versailles and rearms Germany

Massive building of public buildings and constructs the autobahn, a network of highways

Like Mussolini, Hitler believed territorial expansion was necessary

March 7, 1936, the Germany army enters the Rhineland, a region in western Germany

The Treaty of Versailles banned the German military from the region

Hitler correctly believed the Allies would take no action against their aggression

In 1936 Hitler and Mussolini created an alliance, an axis between Berlin and Rome

Germany, Italy and later Japan formed the Axis Powers

In 1938 Hitler pressured Austria for a political union

Austria refused and Hitler ordered German troops into Austria

Most Austrians welcomed the German troops

Later in 1938 Hitler demanded the area of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, an

industrialized area with a large German population

Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chanberlain met twice with Hitler in an attempt to resolve

The Sudetenland issue

Chamberlain pursued a policy of appeasement

Appeasement - giving in to a competitor’s demands in order to keep the peace

Because Britain and France were unprepared for war, and hoping to satisfy Hitler’s appetite for

Territory, they agreed to sacrifice the Sudetenland hoping to satisfy

Civil War in Spain

1936 military rebellion against the newly elected Republican government

Rebels, who became known as the Nationalist were led my General Francisco Franco

Germany and Italy supplied planes, tanks, and soldiers to the Nationalists

Soviet Union sends arms and supplies to the Republicans

March 1939 took control of the capital, ending the civil war

Franco remained in power until his death in 1975

Section 2

Europe Goes to War

Neville Chamberlain returned from the Munich Conference in 1938 believing by giving Hitler the

Sudetenland he averted war

Winston Churchill, a Member of Parliament, did not believe Hitler would be satisfied

Churchill stated, “ Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor.

They will have War.”

Churchill was proved correct

Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in May 1940.

In March 1939, six months after getting the Sudetenland, Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia

Kept the western half and dividing the rest among his allies.

The following month, Italy invaded and occupied Albania.

With no shots fired, peace in Central Europe rapidly broke down.

After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Britain and France abandoned their policy of appeasement.

Britain and France began to prepare for war.

Britain and France pledged to come to the aid of Poland if Germany invaded.

Hitler did not believe them.

Remembering the two front war that Germany had during WWI, Hitler and Stalin signed a ten-year

Nonaggression Pact.

This pact eliminated Germany’s fear of invasion from the east.

A secret of the pact divided the independent states of Eastern Europe between Germany and Russia

September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

September 3, 1939, Britain and France declare war on Germany

Britain, France and Poland had more soldiers and infantry divisions than Germany but Germany had superior

Firepower - more weapons

Germany had a new military tactic, the blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg - “lightning war” - a fast, concentrated air and land attach that took the enemy’s army

By surprise

Using blitzkrieg, the German army overran Poland in less than a month

Poland was divided between Germany and Russia

After several months of no military conflict, Germany began its conquest of Europe

April 9, 1940 attack on Denmark and Norway

May 10,1940 attach on the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg

Mid-May invasion of northern France, the French government abandoned Paris June 10th,

On June 22nd France surrendered to Hitler

The German army’s rapid advance split the French and British army to the north and south

340.000 troops were evacuated in a makeshift fleet across the English Channel

In the unoccupied south of France, the government of General Petain adopted a policy of collaboration

Collaboration - close cooperation with Germany

In London, the government-in-exile under General De Gaulle backed the Resistance movement

Resistance - groups of French citizens whose activities ranged from distributing anti-German

Leaflets to sabotaging German operations in France

Hitler’s army seemed on the brink defeating the Allies

Allies - Great Britain, France, and Poland who were joined by the US and the Soviet Union

In the summer of 1940, Great Britain was stood alone, across the English Channel, in northern France

Germany was planning its attack

In August 1940 the Battle of Britain began and lasted well into September

England’s large and well-equipped Navy controlled the Channel

Germany had to attack from the air

Germany’s Luftwaffe (airforce) began by bombing ports, airfields, and radar installations

Later they attacked aircraft factories and oil storage tanks

Rules of Air Warfare prohibited attacks on civilians

In late August a few Luftwaffe planes strayed off course and dropped bombs on London

In a possible retaliation, the British airforce (RAF) bombed Berlin

In September Hitler ordered massive bombing raids on London

These bombs included firebombs that burned hot enough to set building on fire

The Blitz of London continued on and off until May 1941

By the end of the Blitz, 20,000 Londoners were killed

Section 3

Japan Builds an Empire

During WWI, Japan joined the Allies

Japan became a member of the League of Nations

Japan signed the Kelogg-Briand Pact

In the 1920s Japan’s economy suffered from a series of recessions and as with the rest of the world economic

Conditions grew worse because of the Great Depression

As with other nations, Japan’s government was seen as weak

Radical Nationalism groups formed in opposition to the Japanese government

Japan is located on a string of islands

In the 1900s Japan experienced a population explosion

Japan was in need of more land to feed its growing population

Japan was in need of more raw materials and markets to power its economy

Japan saw Manchuria, north of Korea on the mainland of China as the solution to its problems

In September 1931, Japanese army stationed in Manchuria said Chinese soldiers attempted

To blowup a railroad line

By February 1932, Japan had seized all of Manchuria

Manchurian Incident - name given to the attack and military seizer of Manchuria by Japan

Japan announced Manchuria was now a independent state under Japanese protection

Japan installed a head of state with Japanese advisors to run the government

Puppet state - a supposedly independent country under the control of a powerful

Neighbor

Japan’s actions were condemned by the US and Britain as having broken the Kelogg-Briand Pact

The League of Nations ordered Japan out of occupied Manchuria

Japan resigned its membership to the league

Japan used its military position in Manchuria to plan its further expansion in Asia

In 1940, announced a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere to be led by Japan

The sphere was from Manchuria in the north to the Dutch East Indies in the south

Supposed to liberation Asia from European colonization

In truth the area was need by Japan for its raw materials of oil and rubber

September 1940 Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy - forming the Axis

April 1941 Japan and the Soviet Union signed a neutrality pact

Section 4

From Isolationism to War

American isolationism increased in the early 1930s

FDR was focused more on domestic issues (New Deal) than world issues

In 1935 Congress began to block US involvement in international affairs by passing a series of

Neutrality Acts

1935 - banned the US from providing weapons to nations at war

1936 - banned loans to nations at war

1937 - cash and carry - permitted trade with nations at war in only nonmilitary goods

payment in cash only

nations had to provide their own transport of goods

1939 US isolationism views softened with the aggression of the Axis powers and Japan

1940 with the fall of France, Americans believed in “all aid short of war” be given to Britain

This aid lead to the creation of the American First Committee

American First Committee - group of isolationist who wanted to block further aid to Britain

November 1940, FDR elected to 3rd term

Britain tells US they are no longer able to pay cash for supplies from the US

Lend-Lease Act passed March 1941

Lend-Lease Act - authorized the President to aid any nation whose defense he believed

was vital to American security

While focused on the war in Europe the US was also concerned with the actions of Japan

September 1940 US stopped the sale of scrap iron and steel to Japan

1940 US cracked Japan’s top-secret code

1941 US decoded an intercepted diplomatic messages

US was aware of Japan’s navy was on the move

US expected an attack but did not know where

Japanese warplanes attached Pearl Harbor Navel Shipyard in the morning hours of Sunday, December 7, 1941

In less than two hours 1400 Americans were dead, 200 warplanes damaged or destroyed,

18 warships heavily damaged or sunk including 8 of the fleets 9 battleships

December 8th, FDR signed a declaration of war against Japan

December 11th, Germany and Italy declare war on US

US History

Chapter 18

World War II: Americans at War

Section 1

Mobilization

The armed forces needed to be strengthened

Congress authorized the first peacetime draft in 1940

Selective Training and Service Act -

All males 21 to 36 registered for military service

Men were drafted for service from this group

In 1940 defense spending went from $2 billion to $10 billion by September

FDR’s speech on his vision of what the troops would be fighting for

“Four Freedoms”

Freedom of speech and expression

Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way

Freedom from want

Freedom from fear

More than 16 million Americans served in the war

Called themselves GIs - Government Issue

25,000 Native Americans served

“code talkers”

a group of Navajos developed a secret code

based on their language

enemy could not break the code

secure communication link

500,000 African Americans served

first in supporting roles

by late 1942 given opportunity to fight

fought in separate units

Tuskegee Airmen became the first African American flying unit

350,000 women serviced

not in combat positions

became clerks, typists, airfield control tower operators, mechanics, photographers, drivers,

ferried planes, towed practice targets for antiaircraft gunners

War Production

War Production Board (WPB) set up in 1942

Directed the conversion of peacetime industries to wartime production

Set priorities and allocated raw materials

Armed forces awarded contracts for war production

Office of War Mobilization - established in 1943

Served as a superagency in the centralization of resources

Henry Kaiser introduced mass production techniques in shipbuilding

Cut production time from 200 days to 40 days

Liberty ships - large, sturdy merchant ships to transport supplies and troops

In 1944, American production levels were double of the Axis nations combined

Ended the massive unemployment of the 1930s

Average wages in manufacturing rose by more than 50 percent between 1940 and 1945

Union membership rose, by the end of the war in 1945, membership was 14.8 million

Financing the War

Federal spending increased from $8.9 billion in 1939 to $95.2 billion in 1945

National debt rose from $43 billion in 1940 to $259 billion in 1945

Higher taxes paid for 41% of the cost of war

Treasury Department sold $186 billion in “war bonds”

Federal government borrowed the rest of the money to pay for the war

Home Front

30 million people moved

military families

military production workers

shortages and rationing limited the amount of goods people could buy

1941, Office of Price Administration established

controlled inflation by limiting prices and rents

oversaw rationing

goal of rationing was a fair distribution of scarce items

assigned point value to goods i.e. sugar, butter, coffee, meat, clothing

issued ration books, coupons with value to purchase rationed items

Americans spend money on books, magazines, music

60 percent of the population went to the movies

Public support was established through the use of posters and ads that stirred patriotic feelings

Victory gardens - used to add to the home food supply

By 1943 victory gardens produced about one third of the country’s fresh produce

Section 2

Remaking Europe

In August 1941, FDR and Churchill met secretly to discuss the war’s aims and to agree to a set of principles

Atlantic Charter - a joint declaration of these principles

The US entered the war in December 1941

The German blitzkrieg extended Nazi control across most of Europe

German U-boats sailed from France to attack allied merchant ships as they crossed the Atlantic

Allied ships formed convoys led by American and British warships

Germany countered with groups of up to 20 U-boats called wolf packs

Allied convoys developed better defensive strategies and the U-boat success rate fell

The North Africa Campaign

British army success in battling Italian troops in Egyptian and Libyan deserts

February 1941, Hitler sent General Rommel with a division to reinforce the Italians

The “Desert Fox” succeeded in pushing deep into British-controlled Egypt

November 1942 the British under General Montgomery forced the German’s to retreat west

Days later Allied troops landed in Morocco and Algeria

May 1943 the Allied army had the Axis forces trapped

240,000 Germans and Italians surrendered

January 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt met at the Casablanca Conference to map out strategies for the

rest of the war

They decided to concentrate on Europe, then turn their attention to the Pacific

Invasion of Italy

July 1943 the US Seventh Army, under the command of General Patton, invaded Sicily with British

forces

Italians lost faith in Mussolini and an official Fascist council voted to remove him from office

King Victor Emmanuel III had him arrested

Germans freed Mussolini and evacuated him to northern Italy

September 1943, Allied troops threatened to overrun the south and take Rome

Italy’s new government surrendered

October 1943 Italy declares war on Germany

The German’s setup a puppet state in northern Italy with Mussolini as the leader

April 1945 the Germans in northern Italy surrendered

April 1945 Mussolini was killed as he tried to flee across the Italian border

War in the Soviet Union

In Mein Kampf, Hitler had called for the conquest of the Soviet Union

By 1941 Hitler had taken control of oilfields in Romania, he planned on seizing farmland in the Ukraine

June 22, 1941 3.6 million German and Axis troops poured across the length of the Soviet border

The German blitzkrieg and Luftwaffe drove deep into Soviet territory

Soviet citizens, who had suffered under Stalin, welcomed the Germans as liberators

Welcome was short lived as German troops introduced forced labor and executions

The Soviet Army began to retreat destroying everything that might be useful to the enemy

By autumn 1941, German troops threatened Moscow and nearly surrounded Leningrad

Stalin asked Great Britain to attack on Western Europe; Churchill felt an attack was too risky

At the Casablanca Conference, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to invade Italy

The cold Russian winter stopped the German advance

Spring 1942 Germany set their sights on the oilfields in the southeast

The Red Army made its stand at Stalingrad

September 1942 Germans began a campaign of firebombing and shelling that lasted 2 months

Soviet fighters engaged German fighters in house-to-house combat but lost most of the city

In mid-November Soviet forces took advantage of the harsh winter weather to launch an assault

Hitler had ruled out a retreat and the Red Army surrounded the ruined city

The Germans had few supplies and no way to escape

January 1943, the Red Army launched a final assault

January 31, 1943, more than 90,000 Germans surrendered

In the Battle of Stalingrad Germany lost an estimated 330,000 troops; Soviet losses are estimated

as high as 1,100,000

The Battle of Stalingrad proved to be the turning point if the war in Eastern Europe

Allied Air War

RAF had gained experience during the Battle of Britain

They had fought off German attacks and carried out long-range bombings of Germany

RAF abandoned attempts to pinpoint targets

Developed a technique called carpet bombing

Carpet bombing - planes scattered large numbers of bombs over a wide area

German cities suffered heavy damage

Bombing intensified after the US entered the war

Typical raids consisted of hundreds of B-17 Flying Fortresses escorted by fighters

Bombed aircraft factories, railway lines, ball-bearing plants, bridges, and cities

Aim was to destroy Germany’s ability to fight

Spring 1943, bombing campaigns were increased again in preparation for an eventual allied invasion

By 1944 there was coordinated bombings - American planes by day; RAF by night

Invasion of Western Europe

Stalin was not the only leader calling for an invasion of Western Europe

US General Marshall voiced the same opinion

Late 1943 the British finally agreed

Code named Operation Overlord would launch from Britain

General Eisenhower was named the supreme commander

Massive military buildup in southern England

Polish, Dutch, Belgian, and French troops joined the American, British, and Canadians already

in place

Germany strengthened their defenses on the coast of France

Added machine-gun nest, barbed wire fences, land and water mines, and underwater

obstructions

Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, the Allies left the coast of Britain D-Day

4,600 invasion craft and warships

1,000 RAF bombers pounded German defenses

23,000 British and American soldiers parachuted behind enemy lines

At dawn the invasion began

1,000 American planes continued the bombing

150,000 Allied troops came ashore along 60 miles of the Normandy coast

Hitler hesitated fearing an Allied deception

The Allies experienced heavy casualties on D-Day

By late July Allied forces in France numbered 2 million

Air power helped the Allies establish a beachhead on Normandy and held off German reinforcements

August 1944 Patton used blitzkreig to open a hole in the German line and burst out of Normandy

After breaking the German defenses, Patton swept across northern France

In Paris, an uprising started by the French Resistance freed the city from German control

August 25, 1944, a French division of the US First Army officially liberated Paris

On the same day de Gaulle arrived and prepared to take charge of the government

British and Canadian forces freed Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium

Mid-September, Allied forces attacked Germans occupying the Netherlands at the same time

American soldiers crossed the western border of Germany

Battle of the Bulge

Allied attack on the Netherlands faltered at the Rhine River

German attack smashed into the US First Army, pushing it back, forming a bulge in the

Allied line

The First and Third armies, under the overall direction of General Bradley, knocked the Germans

Back and restarted the Allied drive into Germany

Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle in Western Europe during WW II

600,000 GIs - 80,000 killed, wounded, or captured

German losses 100,000

Most Nazi leaders recognized the war was lost

The War in Europe Ends

March 1945, Allied bombers continued to strike German cities

Bradley crossed the Rhine River and moved toward Berlin from the West

Soviet troops pushed into Germany from the East

German and Soviet fighting from 1941 to 1945 dwarfed the fighting in France

More than 9 million soldiers were fighting on the eastern front

Estimates are that 11 million Soviet and 3 million German soldiers died

This accounted for more than two thirds of the soldiers killed in all of WW II

Estimates are that Soviet civilian and military deaths numbered 11 million

Soviet leaders considered the capture of Berlin a matter of honor

April 1945 Soviet troops fought their way into Berlin

As in Stalingrad fighting was house to house

On April 25, 1945 the Red Army connected with American troops pushing east at the Elbe River

Germany Surrenders

April 30, 1945 Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin

May 8, 1945 the remaining German troops surrendered

American GIs and US citizens celebrated the end of fighting in Europe

V-E Day Victory in Europe

Yalta Conference

February 1945, before the fall of Berlin, Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met at Yalta

In the Soviet Union - planned the shape of postwar world

Built on their meeting in Tehran at the end of 1943

Agreed to split Germany into four zones, each under the control of one of the major

Allies - US, Great Britain, Soviet Union, and France

Agreed to split Berlin in a similar way

Stalin promised to allow elections in the nations of Eastern Europe that his army had liberated

Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan within 3 months of Germany’s surrender

Stalin did not fulfill his promises

Roosevelt and Churchill were criticized for not doing enough to prevent Soviet domination

of Eastern Europe

The issue of Eastern Europe would be at the heart of the conflict that later arose between the Soviet

Union and the Western Allies

Section 3

The Holocaust

Jews in Europe faced persecution for centuries.

In the mid-1800s, a new form of anti-Jewish prejudice arose based on racial theories

Germanic peoples called “Aryans” were thought to be superior to Middle Eastern peoples call Semites

Anti-Semitism - term used to describe discrimination or hostility, often violent, directed at Jews

Following the suffering of WWI and the Great Depression many looked to someone to blame

When Hitler became Germany’s leader in 1933, he made anti-Semitism the official policy of the nation

Holocaust - Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of European Jews

About two thirds of Europe Jews lost their lives

5 to 6 million other people would also die in Nazi captivity

Nazi Policies

Germany’s Jews were excluded from political, social, and economic life

April 1, 1933 there was a one-day boycott of Jewish owned businesses

In 1935 , Nuremberg laws stripped Jews of the German citizenship, and outlawed marriages between

Jews and non-Jews

Jews were characterized as enemies of Germany

1938 Jews had to surrender their own businesses to Aryans, Jewish doctors and lawyers could not

serve non-Jews, Jewish children were expelled from public schools

Hitler’s Police

The Gestapo, secret state police, was formed to identify and pursue enemies of the Nazi regime

Became a part of the SS (Schutzstaffel) in 1939

SS duties included guarding the concentration camps

Concentration camps - places where political prisoners are confined, usually under

harsh conditions, centers of forced labor

Political prisoners included Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, homeless

Kristallnacht - “Night of the Broken Glass” night of November 9, 1938, Nazi thugs throughout Germany and

Austria looted and destroyed Jewish stores, houses, and synagogues

Nazi’s arrested thousands of Jews that night and shipped them off to concentration camps

Germany’s remaining Jews sought any way possible to leave the country

From 1933 through 1937, about 130,000 Jews fled Germany

At first went to other European countries

As the refugee numbers grew, Jews sought protection from US, Latin America, Palestine

Few countries welcomed Jewish refugees

From Murder to Genocide

As Germany overran Europe more and more Jews came under their control

At first, Nazi’s established ghettos, self-contained areas where Jews were forced to live

Warsaw ghetto - 400,000 Jews from the Polish capital were walled off with little food, poor hygiene

Thousands died every month

This wasn’t fast enough for the Nazi’s they had to find a different way

Einsatzgruppen - mobile killing squad originally used in the Soviet Union and occupied territories to

kill Communist leaders and Jews

In Babi Yar, outside Kiev, the Nazis killed more than 33,000 Jews in 2 days

Wannsee Conference - Nazis agreed to a new approach

The “final solution to the Jewish question”

The plan lead to the construction of death camps in Poland to carry out the genocide of the Jews

Death camps - existed primarily for mass murder

Genocide - deliberate destruction of an entire ethnic or cultural group

Jews were crowded in cattle cars and transported to the death camps

At Auschwitz, the main Nazi death camp, 12,000 people could be gassed and cremated a day

Estimates are that 1.5 million people, 90 percent Jews, were killed there

Fighting Back

Jews fought back by joining underground resistance groups

August 1943, rioting Jews damaged the Treblinka death camp and it had to be closed

April 1943, the approximately 50,000 remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against final

deportation

For 27 days they held out against the Nazis

As early as November 1942, the US government knew about the death camps

Nothing was done

January 1944, over State Department objections Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board (WRB)

Which tried to help people threatened by the Nazis

Helped to fund Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg rescue thousands of Hungarian Jews

In late 1944, as Allied armies advanced, the Nazis abandoned camps outside Germany and forced Jews

To march ahead of the German army

In November 1945 an International Military Tribunal conducted the Nuremberg Trials

Of 24 Nazi defendants, 12 received the death sentence

The Nazi argument was the were only “following orders”

Section 4

The War in the Pacific

Just hours after bombing Pearl Harbor, Japanese warplanes bombed Clark Field, the main American air base

In the Philippines

December 8, 1941, Japanese forces attacked American bases on Wake Island

December 10, 1941, Japanese forces attacked American bases on Guam

The Japanese Advance, 1941-1942

The Japanese hoped the US would withdraw from the Pacific

The Japanese continued their attacks

Overran the British strongholds of Hong Kong and Singapore

Seized the Dutch East Indies and Malaya

Invaded Burma

Then turned their sights of the Philippines

Philippines Fall

April 1942, most of the Bataan defenders surrendered

May 1942, 11,000 Americans and Filipinos surrendered on Corregidor

With the fall of Bataan and Corregidor the Japanese captured about 76,000 American and Filipino

prisoners of war

Bataan Death March - The forced 60 mile march to a Japanese army base

At least 10,000 prisoners died on the march

An additional 15,000 prisoners died at prison camps

The brutality of the treatment of the POWs defied the Geneva Convention that stated

that POWs “shall at all times be humanely treated and protected, particularly against acts

of violence”

China joined the Allies on December 9, 1941

The US had already sent military advisors and Lend-Lease arms

They were unable to defend the Burma Road, an important link between the Allied troops and China

The War at Sea

April 1942, a group of American B-25 bombers took off from the aircraft carrier Hornet

This secret mission dropped bombs on Tokyo and other cities

While little damage was done, this counterattack boosted Allied moral and shocked Japan’s

Leadership

May 1942, the American Navy fought desperately to keep the Japanese Navy from reaching Australia

Battle of the Coral Sea - while fought to a draw, it change naval battle strategies

The battle was carried out exclusively from the air, the ships were not within sight of each other

From now on, aircraft and aircraft carriers would play the central role in naval battles

Allied Victories Turn the Tide

Summer of 1942, two critical battles took place

Battle of Midway

Japanese bombers attacked the island of Midway

American planes on Midway tried to defend against the Japanese carrier based bombers

American carriers were able to bomb the Japanese carriers as they refueled and rearmed

their bombers

The Americans were able to sink the four Japanese carriers

Japanese lost 250 planes as most of their skilled naval pilots

Battle of Guadalcanal

The victory at Midway allowed the Allies to take the offensive in the Pacific

First goal was to capture Guadalcanal where the Japanese were building an airfield

August 1942, more than 11,000 marines landed on the island

This battle provided the marines with their first taste of jungle warfare

The battle lasted until February 1943, when the remaining Japanese forces slipped of the island

Struggle for the Islands

Island-hopping - military strategy of selectively attacking specific enemy help island and bypassing

others; able to move faster, the bypassed islands were cut off from needed supplies

At first the American plan was to bypass the Philippines; General MacArthur persuaded Roosevelt

to reverse this decision

Battle of Leyte Gulf

greatest naval battle in world history, three day sea battle

first use of kamikazes

kamikazes - suicide planes, pilots loaded their aircraft with bombs and then deliberately

crashed them into enemy ships to inflict maximum damage

Iwo Jima and Okinawa

The fighting grew deadlier as American troops moved closed to Japan

Battle of Iwo Jima

Began in mid-February 1945, and lasted 72 days

American casualties are estimated at 25.000

Famous photograph by Joe Rosenthal of six marines hoisting American flag on Iwo Jima

Battle of Okinawa

April to June 1945, the island was a little more than 350 miles from Japan

Allied troops 180,000 and 1,300 warships

Second only to the invasion of Normandy

Japanese Banzai charges - attacks in which the soldiers tried to kill as many of the enemy

as possible until the themselves were killed

nearly 50,000 American casualties - most in any battle in the Pacific

The Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project - top secret group organized to develop the deadly Atom bomb before the Germans

August 1949 Albert Einstein had written to Roosevelt about the German plan to build the bomb

July 16, 1945, field test of a-bomb in the desert of New Mexico

Blew a huge crater in the ground and blew out windows 125 miles away

Once the bomb was ready, the decision of whether to use against Japan had to be made

The decision to drop the bomb

Alternate possibilities

Massive of invasion of Japan; expected millions of American casualties

Naval blockade to starve Japan; continue conventional bombings

Demonstrate the bomb for the Japanese

The Interim Committee who studied them recommended none of the alternatives

The final decision was Trumans and he never regretted it

August 6, 1945, the American bomber, Enola Gay, dropped the first a-bomb of Hiroshima

August 9, 1945, a second a-bomb was dropped on Nagasaki

August 14, 1945, the government of Japan accepted the American terms for surrender

Section 5

The Social Impart of the War

African Americans

While industries needed workers, one out of five potential African Americans remained unemployed

June 25, 1941, Roosevelt signed an executive order opening jobs and training programs in defense

Plants to all Americans

Created the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)

As a result, African Americans shared in some of the wartime prosperity

During the 40s, 2 million African Americans migrated from the South

Segregation continued in the north

Military strictly segregated white and African American troops

Roosevelt declined to disrupt the war effort to promote social equality

African Americans worked for change on their own

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) - established in Chicago in 1942

Believed in using nonviolent techniques to end racism

Their efforts paved the was for the civil rights movement of the 1950s

Mexican Americans

Faced discrimination

Bracero Program

Shortages in farm labor led the US to seek help from Mexico

1942 agreement provided transportation, food, shelter, and medical care for thousands

braceros - Mexican farm laborers brought to the US

barrios - Spanish-speaking neighborhoods

Native Americans

25,000 serviced in the armed forces

23,000 worked in war industries

Many had lived only on reservations

Many did not return to the reservation after the war

This cultural transition led to a sense of loss of their roots

Japanese Americans

Suffered official discrimination during the war

Japanese population represented about 0.1 of the entire population; 127,000

Hostility grew after the attack on Pearl Harbor

February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed an executive order removing all “aliens” from the West Coast

War Relocation Authority moved everyone of Japanese ancestry, 110,000 people

Internment camps were located in desolate areas, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled

Lived in wooden barracks equipped with cots, blankets, and light bulbs

Shared bathrooms and dining facilities

Uncomfortably like concentration camps

In a court case heard by the US Supreme Court the relocation policy was seen as not racial

In 1988, Congress passed a law awarding each surviving Japanese American a$20,000 payment

Until 1943 Japanese Americans were not accepted into the military

Eventually, 17,000 fought in the armed services

Most were Nisei - citizens born in the US to Japanese immigrant parents

Working Women

Like WW I, WW II brought women into different parts of the workforce

The number of women in the workforce rose from 14.6 million in 1941 to 19.4 million in 1944

Women benefited from the work by earning money to pay of depression debt and to feel a part of the

war effort

Women continued not to be paid the same wages as men doing the same job

In 1942 the National War Labor Board said women should receive the same pay - employers ignored

The government assumed women would leave employment after the war to open the jobs to returning men

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