Chapter Twenty-Five

World War II, 1941–1945

Chapter Focus Questions

1. What events led to Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war?

2. How were national resources marshaled for war?

3. What characterized American society during wartime?

4. How were Americans mobilized into the armed forces?

5. How was the war pursued in Europe and Asia?6. How did the atomic bomb affect diplomacy?

American Communities

Los Alamos, New Mexico

Los Alamos, New Mexico

1. The Manhattan Project created a community of scientists whose mission was to build the atomic bomb.

2. The scientists and their families lived in the remote, isolated community of Los Alamos.

3. They formed a close-knit community, united by antagonism toward the Army and secrecy from the outside world.

4. Led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientists developed a strong sense of camaraderie as they struggled to develop the atomic bomb.

25.1:

The Coming of World War II

A. The Shadows of War

1. The global character of the Great Depression accelerated a breakdown in the political order.

2. Militaristic authoritarian regimes that had emerged in Japan, Italy, and Germany threatened peace throughout the world.

3. Japan took over Manchuria and then invaded China.4. Italy made Ethiopia a colony.

5. German aggression against Czechoslovakia threatened to force Britain and France into the war.

FIGURE 25.1a Gallup Polls: European War and World War I, 1938–1940 These three polls conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion indicate the persistence of isolationist sentiment and popular criticism of U.S. involvement in World War I. Many respondents believed the United States, despite its commitments to European allies, should stay out of war. After 1940, in the aftermath of Nazi military victories in Europe, many Americans reconsidered their opposition, fearing a threat to democracy in their own nation.

FIGURE 25.1b Gallup Polls: European War and World War I, 1938–1940

FIGURE 25.1c Gallup Polls: European War and World War I, 1938–1940

B. Isolationism 1. By the mid-1930s many Americans had concluded

that entry into WWI and an active foreign role for the United States had been a serious mistake.

2. College students protested against the war. 3. Congress passed the Neutrality Acts to limit the

sale of munitions to warring countries. 4. Prominent Americans urged a policy of “America

First” to promote non-intervention. FDR promoted military preparedness, despite little national support.

C. Roosevelt Readies for War

1. The combined German-Soviet invasion of Poland plunged Europe into war.

2. German blitzkrieg techniques quickly led to takeovers of Denmark, Norway, and later Belgium and France.

3. As the Nazi air force pounded Britain, FDR pushed for increased military expenditures.

4. Since 1940 was an election year, FDR claimed these were for “hemispheric defense.” After winning his third term, FDR expanded American involvement.

5. FDR met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and drafted the Atlantic Charter—a statement of war aims.

D. Pearl Harbor

1. The Japanese threatened to seize Europe’s Asian colonies.

2. FDR cut off trade with Japan. 3. Japan attacked the base in Pearl Harbor. 4. The United States declared war;

declarations against Germany and Italy followed.

Japanese attack planes devastated the U.S. fleet stationed on the Hawai’ian island of Oahu. Before December 7, 1941, few Americans had heard of Pearl Harbor, but the “sneak” attack became a symbol of Japanese treachery and the necessity for U.S. revenge.SOURCE:National Archives and Records Administration.

On the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and asked for an immediate declaration of war against Japan. The resolution passed with one dissenting vote, and the United States entered World War II.SOURCE:AP/Wide World Photos.

Part Four:NOT A REQUIRED

READING!!!!

Arsenal of Democracy

Mobilizing for War

Congress and FDR created laws and new agencies to promote mobilization.

The Office of War Information controlled war news and promoted morale at home. War bonds were used to promote support as well as raise funds.

As mobilization proceeded, New Deal agencies vanished.

Organizing the Economy

The industrial capacity of the United States was the decisive factor in the war. Civilian firms were converted to war purposes and American industries were primed for all-out production. An unprecedented economic boom pulled the country out of the depression. The largest firms, especially those in the West and South, received large shares of wartime contracts. The war increased farm profits, but thousands of small farms disappeared.Chart: Effects of War Spending

New Workers

The demand for labor brought Mexicans, Indians, African Americans, and women into the industrial labor force.

The entry of these new female workers broke down many stereotypes.

Workers’ wages went up, but not as fast as profits or prices.

Wartime Strikes

Prior to American entry, militant unions had led a number of strikes. Once the United States entered the war, the major unions:

agreed to no-strike pledgesincreased their membership and won new benefits

African-American union membership doubled.Some illegal strikes did break out, leading to federal antistrike legislation.

25.3:

The Home Front

A. Families in Wartime

1. The war spurred marriage rates. 2. Shortages of housing and retail goods added to the

difficulties families encountered.3. With one-parent households increasing, child-care

issues arose. Some day-care assistance was available, though it scarcely met people’s needs.

4. The rise in unsupervised youths created problems with juvenile crime. The availability of jobs led to higher high school dropout rates.

5. Public health improved greatly during the war.

Students at Officers’ Training School at Northwestern University, who were not allowed to marry until they were commissioned as ensigns, apply for marriage licenses in Chicago, August 20, 1943, shortly before graduation. These young couples helped the marriage rate skyrocket during World War II. SOURCE:CORBIS (CS/695089).

B. The Internment of Japanese Americans

1. In 1942, more than 112,000 Japanese were removed from their homes in the West to relocation centers, often enduring harsh living conditions.

2. The Supreme Court upheld the policy, though in 1988 the U.S. Congress voted for reparations and public apologies.

More than 110,000 Japanese Americans were interned during World War II, some for up to four years. This photograph, taken by Dorothea Lange (1895–1965), the famed photographer of Depression Era migrant families, shows the Mochida family in May 1942 waiting for a bus that will take them to a relocation camp. SOURCE:Corbis NA001774.

C. “Double V”: Victory at Home & Abroad

1. African-American activists launched a “Double V” campaign calling for victory overseas and equal rights at home.

2. FDR responded to a threatened march on Washington by banning racial discrimination in defense industries.

3. New civil rights organizations emerged while older ones grew.

4. More than 1 million blacks left the South to take jobs in war industries.

5. They often encountered violent resistance from local whites.

This painting is by Horace Pippin, a self-taught African American artist who began painting as therapy for an injury suffered while serving with the U.S. Army’s 369th Colored Infantry Regiment during World War I. It is one of a series drawn during World War II illustrating the contradiction between the principles of liberty and justice, for which Americans were fighting abroad, and the reality of race prejudice at home. SOURCE:Horace Pippin (1888 –1946),Mr.Prejudice , 1943.Oil on canvas, 18” x 14”. Philadelphia Museum of Art,Gift of Dr.and Mrs.Matthew T. Moore.Photo by Graydon Wood (1984 –108 –1).

D. Zoot-Suit Riots

1. Whites’ bitter resentment against Mexican Americans exploded in 1943.

2. The zoot-suit riots erupted when whites concluded that Mexican youths who wore the flamboyant clothes were unpatriotic.

3. Most Mexican Americans served in the military or worked in war industries.

E. Popular Culture and the “Good War”

1. Popular culture seemed to bridge the racial divisions.

2. Southerners moving to northern cities brought musical styles and changed the sound of popular culture.

3. Popular entertainment, whether in film or comic books, emphasized the wartime spirit, as did fashion.

25.4:

Men and Women in Uniform

A. Creating the Armed Forces

Maps: Wartime Army Camps1. Even before formally entering the war, the

government had begun a draft. 2. The officer corps, except for General

Eisenhower, tended to be professional, conservative, and autocratic.

3. Junior officers were trained in special military schools and developed close ties with their troops.

Women Enter the Military

For the first time, the War Department created women’s divisions of the major services.Most women stayed in the country and performed clerical or health-related duties. Some flew planes and others went into combat with the troops. The military closely monitored sexual activity and practiced racial segregation.

New recruits to the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) pick up their clothing “issue” (allotment). These volunteers served in many capacities, from nursing men in combat to performing clerical and communication duties “stateside” (within the United States). Approximately 140,000 women served in the WACS during World War II. SOURCE:Nationale Archives and Records Administration.

Old Practices and New Horizons

Despite suspicions of the military’s racism, 1 million African Americans served in the armed forces. These soldiers encountered segregation at every point. Many racial or ethnic minorities (along with homosexuals) also served and often found their experience made them feel more included in American society. In Europe, American troops met a mixed welcome, in part dictated by their actions.

The Medical Corps

The risk of injury was much higher than that of getting killed in battle.Battle fatigue also was a problem.The Army depended on a variety of medical personnel to care for sick and wounded soldiers. The true heroes of the battlefront were the medics attached to each infantry battalion.

Prisoners of War

POWs held in German camps were treated much better than those held by the Japanese.

This treatment, along with racism, led Americans to treat Japanese POWs more harshly than those captured in the European theater.

25.5:

The World at War

MAP 25.1 The War in Europe The Allies remained on the defensive during the first years of the war, but by 1943 the British and Americans, with an almost endless supply of resources, had turned the tide.

A. Soviets Halt Nazi Drive

1. During the first year of American involvement, FDR called the war news “all bad.” The burden of fighting the Nazis fell to the Soviets who blocked the German advance on Moscow.

2. The Soviets broke the siege of Stalingrad in February 1943 and began to push the Germans back.

B. The Allied Offensive

1. Although the Soviets appealed for the Allies to open up a “second front” in western Europe, they instead attacked North Africa and Italy.

2. Churchill and FDR met in Casablanca and agreed to seek an unconditional German surrender.

3. American and British planes poured bombs on German cities that:

a. weakened the economy

b. undermined civilian morale

c. crippled the German air force

As part of the air war on Germany, Allied bombers launched a devastating attack on Dresden, a major economic center, in February 1945. Of the civilians who died, most from burns or smoke inhalation during the firestorm, a large number were women and children, refugees from the Eastern Front. The city was left in ruins. SOURCE:“Commuters

boarding a tram.” Getty Images,Inc.Photo by Fred Ramage (97K/HATY/7781/08).

C. The Allied Invasion of Europe

1. The Allied invasion forced Italy out of the war, though German troops stalled Allied advances.

2. Uprisings against Nazi rule tied up German power. 3. By early 1944, Allied units were preparing for the D-

Day assault on France. 4. Paris was taken on August 25, 1944. France and other

occupied countries fell as Allied units overran the Germans.

5. The Battle of the Bulge temporarily halted the Allied advance.

6. On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered.

D-Day landing, June 6, 1944, marked the greatest amphibious maneuver in military history. Troop ships ferried Allied soldiers from England to Normandy beaches. Within a month, nearly 1 million men had assembled in France, ready to retake western and central Europe from German forces. SOURCE:Photo by Robert Capa.CORBIS.

D. The War in Asia and the Pacific

1. In the Pacific theater Allied forces stopped Japanese advances by June 1942.

2. Naval battles and island hopping brought U.S. forces closer to the Japanese home islands.

3. Victories in the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa enabled the Allies to bomb Japanese cities.

4. Britain and the United States pressed for rapid surrender to prevent the Soviets from taking any Japanese-held territories.

MAP 25.2 War in the Pacific Across an ocean battlefield utterly unlike the European theater, Allies battled Japanese troops near their homeland.

25.6:

The Last Stages of the War

A. The Holocaust

1. The horror of the Nazi’s systematic extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other “inferior” races was slow to enter American consciousness.

2. Although Jewish refugees pleaded for a military strike to stop the killings, the War Department vetoed any such plans.

Belsen Camp: The Compound for Women, painted by American artist Leslie Cole, depicts Belsen as the Allied troops found it when they invaded Germany in 1945. SOURCE:Leslie Cole,Belsen Camp.The Compound for Women . Imperial War Museum,London.

B. The Yalta Conference

1. The “Big Three” attempted to hammer out the shape of the postwar world.

2. The ideals of the Atlantic Charter fell before Soviet and British demands for spheres of influence.

3. FDR continued to hold on to his idealism, but his death in April cast a shadow over hopes for peaceful solutions to global problems.

C. The Atomic Bomb 1. The new president, Harry S. Truman, lacked FDR’s finesse

and planned a get-tough policy with the Soviet Union. 2. At Potsdam, little progress was made on planning the future. 3. Truman decided to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese. 4. Truman was aware that the war could have been brought to a

peaceful conclusion with only a slight modification in policy. 5. Truman claimed the use of the bomb would substantially

shorten the war and save American lives.

Specialists worked for nearly a decade to restore the components of the Enola Gay, making the B-29 bomber the museum’s largest restoration project. This photograph shows the forward fuselage with bomb bay and the propellers. If fully assembled, the Enola Gay is too big and too heavy to fit in the museum. National Air and Space Museum/Smithsonian Institution.

This photograph shows the Genbaku Dome, the exterior of one of the buildings in central Hiroshima to survive the bombing. After the atomic bomb fell, fires thoughout the central city combined to make a huge fire storm. A “black rain” of radioactive debris caused by the blast fell for more than a hour, covering an even wider area. More than a quarter of the city’s population died immediately following the explosion, and few buildings within a radius of three miles were left standing.Bettmann/Corbis.

Peace activists around the world commemorate August 6th as “Hiroshima Day,” whereas most Americans celebrate “Victory Over Japan Day,” or V-J Day.”This photograph shows demonstrators gathering at the United Nations in New York City on the fifteenth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb over Japan.AP Wide World Photos.

The so-called mushroom cloud has become a familiar, iconic image of the power released with the explosion of atomic bombs. Here, a photograph of the mushroom cloud from the atomic bomb Little Boy that was dropped on Hiroshima is paired with American Pop artist Andy Warhol’s silk-screen on canvas, Atomic Bombs, which was produced in the 1960s.National Archives and Records Administration.

Atomic age adventures were popular themes in comic books during the 1950s. Atomic War, which appeared at the height of the Korean War, featured atomic weapons used against Communist nations. This genre continued to be produced well into the 1960s. The Authentic History Center.

The Hiroshima Peace memorial Museum and Park, which is located at the city center, opened in 1955. The Genbaku Dome appears in the background of this photograph. Every year, on August 6th, people gather to offer prayers for those who died in the bombing and to express their hope for peace. John Van Hasselt.Corbis/Sygma.