Mobilizing for Defense

Chapter 17 Section 1

Americans Join the War Effort

• “Remember Pearl Harbor” became national battle cry

• 5 Million Americans volunteered for the military– Needed more soldiers for 2 ocean war

• Selective Service System is extended• 10 Million drafted

Expanding the Military

• Army Chief of Staff George Marshall created Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC)– Gave women official military

status– Served in non-combat

situations• Worked as nurses,

ambulance drivers, radio operators, electricians and pilots

Minorities and the War

• 300,000 Mexican Americans joined• 1 Million African Americans– Fought in segregated units– Saw combat beginning in 1943

• 25,000 Native Americans– Navajo Code Talkers

A Production Miracle

• February 1942 – Automobile industry stopped producing cars and began making tanks, planes, boats and command cars

• Factories were retooled to make war goods

Labor’s Contributions

• By 1944 there were 18 million U.S. workers in war industries

• 6 Million women workers– Earned 60% of what

men made• 2 Million minority

workers

Mobilization of Scientists

• 1941 Roosevelt created the Office of Scientific Research and Design (OSRD)– Improvements in sonar

and radar• Manhattan Project– Program to create an

atomic bomb

Economic Controls• Office of Price Administration

(OPA)– Shortage of consumer goods,

should cause a rise in prices– OPA froze the prices of many

goods• Congress raised income taxes,

and taxed million who had never been taxed before

• War Productions Board (WPB) – managed which companies would produce what war goods.

Rationing

• WPB held nationwide drives to collect scrap iron, tin cans, paper, rags and cooking fat for war effort

• OPA set up a rationing system– Each household received a

ration books with copupons to be used for scarce items

– Ex: meat, shoes, sugar, coffee and gas

The War for Europe and North Africa

Chapter 17 Section 2

United States and Great Britain join forces

• Following Pearl Harbor, Churchill and Roosevelt met with each other again and this time made joint plans for war– Both agreed that

Germany and Italy were more dangerous than Japan

– They would start with Hitler

Battle of the Atlantic

• Hitler tried to keep ships from getting from America to Britain– Food and supplies

• By mid-1943 the Atlantic belonged to the United States– Convoys – groups of ships

traveling together for mutual protection

– Ship production had greatly increased

Battle of Stalingrad

• Soviets lost more than 1,100,000 soldiers – More than all American

deaths during the entire war• Hitler wanted Stalingrad

because of its access to the Volga River and its factories– Also has control of all the oil

• By January 31, 1943 the Germans had surrendered

Battle of Stalingrad continued:• Key decisions in determining the outcome of Stalingrad:

– Winters – had a major toll on especially the Germans– "My hands are done for, and have been ever since the beginning of

December. The little finger of my left hand is missing and - what's even worse - the three middle fingers of my right one are frozen. I can only hold my mug with my thumb and little finger. I'm pretty helpless; only when a man has lost any fingers does he see how much he needs then for the smallest jobs. The best thing I can do with the little finger is to shoot with it. My hands are finished." Anonymous German soldier

– Hitler refused to retreat his army– Stalin’s refusal to concede the city

The North African Front

• Dwight D. Eisenhower and more than 107,000 troops landed on Algiers in November of 1942

• By May of 1943, General Rommel and his entire German army had been defeated and surrendered

• The Allies now controlled North Africa

The Italian Campaign

• Summer 1943 – Allies capture the island of Sicily

• Shocked by defeat, the Italian King strips Mussolini of power and has him arrested

• Hitler refuses to lose Italy and sends German troops to reinforce the Italian Peninsula

• 40 Miles from Rome the Battle of Anzio– Jan. – May 1944 – 25,000 Allies Died– 30,000 Axis Casualties

• Italy does not become free from Nazi control until 1945, when Germany itself is close to collapse

D-Day

• June 6, 1944• 3 million American, British, and Canadian

troops• Nicknamed Operation Overlord – commanded

by Eisenhower• 1200 ships, 4,126 landing craft, 804 transport

ships, 132,500 land soldiers• 10,000 planes – 23,000 airborne troops

D-Day continued:

• Initial fighting went on for seven days of which the worst was at the beach of Omaha

• Despite heavy casualties the Allies controlled an 80-mile strip of beach along France and slowly made their way inland

Battle of the Bulge

• A massive offensive by Hitler which became a last-ditch effort to push back the Allies

• Tanks and soldiers drove 60 miles into the Allies territory capturing many Allied soldiers – which they immediately murdered

• Battle went on for a month

Battle of the Bulge cont…

• The Germans lost men and equipment in which they could not replace fast enough

• The battle weakened their entire army– 120,000 troops were killed– 600 tanks were lost– 1600 planes were shot down

George Patton

• Led the offensive to liberate Paris from German occupation

Unconditional Surrender

• April 25, 1945 the Soviet army stormed Berlin

• Hitler shot himself and ordered that he and his new wife’s bodies be burned

• May 8, 1945 – V-E Day– Victory in Europe Day

Roosevelt’s Death

• April 12, 1945 Roosevelt had a massive stroke and died

• Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president

The War in the Pacific

Chapter 17 Section 3

Japanese Advances

• Following Pearl Harbor:– Hong Kong– French Indochina– Malaya– Burma– Thailand– And much of China– Dutch East Indies, Guam, Wake Island, Solomon

Islands, Philippines

Douglas McArthur

• Commanded the Allied troops stationed on the Philippine Islands

• Ordered to leave by president Roosevelt – However, he vowed

to come back

Doolittle’s Raid

• Spring 1942• James Doolittle

and 16 bomber planes bombed Tokyo– Lifted American

spirits and caused panic among the Japanese

Battle of Midway

• Chester Nimitz – commander of the American Pacific Fleet

• United States knew about the planned attack on Midway

• June 3, 1942, the Americans found the Japan fleet of attack ships and bombarded them with bombs from above– The Japanese were caught totally off guard– Their planes were still on the aircraft carriers– The results were devastating for the Japanese

Battle of Midway cont…..

• Turning point in the Pacific War• Island hopping:– The Allies begin “hopping” from island to island

slowly winning back territory from the Japanese

Allies on the Offensive

• Guadalcanal– August 1942 – 19,000 troops attacked in the Solomon Islands– Japan’s first defeat on land

• Leyte Island (Philippines)– 1944– 178,000 troops, 738 ships– Kamikaze – suicide plane – Disaster for Japan

• In 3 days of battle: Japan lost 3 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 13 cruisers, and 500 planes

Iwo Jima

• Allies needed this strategic island to launch heavily loaded bomber planes from

• 20,700 Japanese troops (only 200 lived)• 70,000 marines stormed the Island• 6,000 marine casualties

Battle of Okinawa

• Importance:– Last island that stood between the Allies and

Japan• 7,600 Americans were killed• 110,000 Japanese were killed

Manhattan Project

• J. Robert Oppenheimer – American scientist that helped develop the atomic bomb

• August 6 1945– Hiroshima – important military center– almost every building in the city was destroyed in 43 seconds– 70,000 people were killed on impact – 69,000 more were

injured – and more than 200,000 would die as a result of injuries and radiation

– Nagasaki– 39,000 killed on impact – 25,000 injured

Japan Surrenders

• Emperor Hirohito horrified by the destruction of the Atomic Bombs, orders Tojo to surrender.

• Sept. 2nd, 1945 – Japan surrenders aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay

• Known as V-J Day

The Yalta Conference

• Roosevelt (USA), Churchill (G.B.) and Stalin (USSR) meet in Yalta to discuss how post-war Europe would look

• Roosevelt acted as a mediator between Stalin and Churchill

Post War Europe

• Germany divided into 4 occupation zones, one for each Allie (France, USA, Great Britain and Soviet Union)

• Stalin promises free elections in Poland• Nuremburg Trials – Hitler’s party officals put

on trial for war crimes, and genocide from Holocaust

• 12 of 24 sentenced to death

Occupation of Japan

• Gen. Douglas MacArthur becomes commander of US Forces in Japan.

• Former Prime Minister Tojo and 7 others sentenced to death

• Americans occupied Japan for 7 years– Established democratic government– Women’s suffrage, basic freedoms– Japanese Constitution still called the MacArthur

Constitution

The Home Front

Chapter 17 Section 4

• War was good for economy• Unemployment fell to 1.2% in 1944– Needed people to work in the war industries

• African Americans left the South and moved to the North and West

Help for GI’s

• Serviceman’s Readjustment Act- GI Bill of Rights – Provided education and training for veterans, paid

for by the government– 7.8 Million Vets received training with GI Bill

Internment of Japanese Americans• Executive Order 9066 – called for Japanese Americans to be placed

in internment camps away from the Western Coast– Government/Military was fearful of spies

• Korematsu v. United States (1944) –Supreme Court Ruled that internment of Japanese Americans was legal because of “military necessity”

• Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) asked for compensation. • 1965- US Government paid out $38 Million to families of interned

Japanese Americans (less than half of what was owed)• 1990 –Each Japanese person interned received $20,000 and a

letter from President George H.W. Bush

The Holocaust

Chapter 16 Section 3

The Persecution Begins

• Holocaust – the systematic murder of 11 million people across Europe (more than half of whom were Jews)

• Anti-Semitism – hatred of Jews• Nuremberg Laws – stripped Jews of their

citizenship, jobs, and property

Kristallnacht

• “Night of broken glass”• Nazi soldiers attacked Jewish homes,

businesses, and synagogues across Germany• November 9-10 1938

Problems the Jews were facing in Germany:

• Loss of employment• Loss of property• Harassment• Humiliation• Physical harm• Death threats and murder

Jewish Refugees

• Jews tried to flee to other countries• France already had 40,000 refugees• Britain had 80,000• United States refused to loosen immigration

restrictions to allow more Jews to immigrate• Many were left to be thrown into the Nazi

concentration camps and killed

The “Final Solution”

• Policy of genocide• Genocide – the deliberate and systematic killing

of an entire population• Hitler believed the Aryans to be a superior

people• Other groups of people besides the Jews were

also persecuted and killed:• Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals,

mentally deficient, mentally ill, and physically disabled

Ghettos

• Segregated Jewish areas in certain Polish cities• Were usually sealed off with barbed wire and

stone walls

Concentration Camps

• Often called labor camps• Life inside the camps was miserable• Cycle of hunger, humiliation, and work that

more often than not ultimately ended with death

• Prisoners worked until they collapsed• If unable to continue working, they were killed