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Chapter 35

Chapter 35. America in World War II, 1941–1945. I. The Allies Trade Space for Time. Time was the most needed munition: Expense was no limitation America’s problem was to retool itself for all-out war production Dictators would not crush their adversaries

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Chapter 35

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  1. Chapter 35 America in World War II, 1941–1945

  2. I. The Allies Trade Space for Time • Time was the most needed munition: • Expense was no limitation • America’s problem was to retool itself for all-out war production • Dictators would not crush their adversaries • German scientists might find the unbeatable secret weapon. • America’s task: • It had to feed, clothe, and arm itself • It had to transport its forces to regions as far separated as Britain and Burma.

  3. I. The Allies Trade Space for Time(cont.) • It had to send a vast amount of food and munitions to its hard-pressed allies • Who stretched all the way from the USSR to Australia.

  4. II. The Shock of War • National unity was no worry, since the bombing of Pearl Harbor: • American Communists denounced the Anglo-French “imperialist” war • Clamoring for an unmitigated assault on the Axis powers • Pro-Hitlerites in the United States melted away • Millions of Italian Americans and German Americans were loyal supporters of the nation’s war programs • World War II speeded the assimilation of many ethnic groups into American society • No government witch-hunting of minority groups.

  5. II. The Shock of War(cont.) • Painful exception—the plight of 110,000 Japanese Americans, mainly on the Pacific Coast (see pp. 800-801) • Government forcibly herded them together in concentration camps • Executive Order No. 9066: • The internment camps deprived these uprooted Americans of dignity and basic rights • The internees lost hundreds of millions of dollars in property and forgone earnings • The Supreme Court 1944 upheld the constitutionality of the Japanese relocation in Korematsu v. U.S. • In 1988 the U.S. government officially apologized and approved the payment of reparations of $20,000 to each camp survivor.

  6. II. The Shock of War(cont.) • War prompted changes in the American mood: • Many New Deal programs were wiped away • The era of the New Deal was over • World War II was no idealistic crusade • U.S. government now put emphasis on action.

  7. p800

  8. p801

  9. p801

  10. p802

  11. III. Building the War Machine • American economy snapped to attention: • Massive military orders—over $100 billion in 1942 alone—soaked up the ideal industrial capacity • War Production Board (WPB): • Halted the manufacture of nonessential items—passenger cars • Assigned priorities for transportation and access to raw materials • Imposed a national speed limit and gasoline rating in order to conserve rubber and built 51 synthetic-rubber plants • By war’s end they were far outproducing the prewar supply.

  12. III. Building the War Machine(cont.) • Farmers increased their output • The armed forces drained the farms of workers • But heavy new investment in agricultural machinery and improved fertilizers more than made up the difference • In 1944 and 1945 the farmers hauled in record-breaking billion-bushel wheat harvests. • Economic strains: • Full employment and scarce consumer goods fueled a sharp inflationary surge in 1942.

  13. III. Building the War Machine(cont.) • The Office of Price Administration (OPA): • Eventually brought ascending prices under control with extensive regulations • Rationing held down the consumption of critical goods • Though some “black marketeers” and “meatleggers” cheated the system • The National War Labor Board (NWLB): • Imposed ceilings on wage increases

  14. III. Building the War Machine(cont.) • Labor conditions: • Labor union membership increased from 10 million to more than 13 million during the war • They fiercely resented the government-dictated wage ceilings • A rash of labor walkouts plagued the war efforts • Prominent among the strikers were the United Mine Workers: • Called off the job by the union chieftain, John L. Lewis.

  15. III. Building the War Machine(cont.) • The Smith-Connally Anti-StrikeAct: June, 1943: • Authorized the federal government to seize and operate tied-up industries • Strikes against any government-operated industry were made a criminal offense • Washington took over the coal mines, and for a brief time, the railroads • Work stoppages actually accounted for less than one percent of the total working hours of U.S.’ wartime laboring force.

  16. p803

  17. IV. Manpower and Womanpower • The armed service enlistments: • 15 million men in World War II • 216,000 women, who were employed for noncombat duties • “Women in arms” were the WACs (Women’s Army Corps), WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) (navy), SPARs (U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve) • Millions of young men were clothed in “GI” government issue) outfits.

  18. IV. Manpower and Womanpower(cont.) • Exempted industrial and agricultural workers from the draft • Still there was a shortage of farms and factory workers • The Bracero program: • Mexican agricultural workers, called braceros, came to harvest the fruit and grain crops of the West • The Bracero program outlived the war by some twenty years, becoming a fixed feature of the agricultural economy in many western states.

  19. IV. Manpower and Womanpower (cont.) • 6 million women took joys outside their homes: • Over half had never before worked for wages • Government was obliged to set up 3,000 day-care centers to care for “Rosie the Riveter’s” children • At the end of the war many women were not eager to give up the work • The war foreshadowed an eventual revolution in the roles of women in American society.

  20. IV. Manpower and Womanpower(cont.) • Many women did not work for wages in the wartime economy, but continued traditional roles • At war’s end, 2/3 of women war workers left the labor force • Many were forced out by returning service-men • Many quit their jobs voluntarily because of family obligations • There was a widespread rush into suburban domes- ticity and the mothering of the “baby boomers.”

  21. p804

  22. p804

  23. V. Wartime Migrations • Demographic changes: • 15 million men and women decided not to return home again • War industries sucked people into boomtowns—Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle, Baton Rouge • California’s population grew by 2 million • The south experienced dramatic changes: • Here were the seeds of the postwar blossoming of the “Sunbelt” (see Map 35.1)

  24. V. Wartime Migrations(cont.) • Some 1.6 millions blacks left the South for jobs in the war plants of the West and North • Forever after, race relations constituted a national, not a regional, issue • Explosive tensions developed over employment, housing, and segregated facilities • Roosevelt issued an executive order forbidding discrimination in defense industries • He established the Fair Employment Practices Com-mission (FEPC): • To monitor compliance with his edict.

  25. V. Wartime Migrations(cont.) • Blacks were drafted into the armed forces: • Assigned to service branches rather than combat units • Subjected to petty degradations: • Segregated blood banks for the wounded • In general the war helped to embolden blacks in their long struggle for equality • Slogan—“Double V”—victory over the dictators abroad and over racism at home • Membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) shot up to the half-million mark:

  26. V. Wartime Migrations(cont.) • A new militant organization committed to nonviolent “direct action”, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) 1942. • The northward migration of African Americans accelerated after the war: • Thanks to the advent of the mechanical cotton picker • Introduced in 1944, this machine did the work of 50 people at about 1/8th the cost • The Cotton South’s historic need for cheap labor dis- appeared • Some 5 million black tenant farmers and sharecrop- pers headed north in the decades after the war • One of the great migrations in American history.

  27. V. Wartime Migrations(cont.) • By 1970 half of the blacks lived outside the South • And urban became almost became a synonym for black • The war prompted an exodus of Native Americans from the reservation • Thousands, men and women, found work in the major cities • Thousands more went into the armed forces • 90% of Indians resided on reservations in 1940 • 6 decades later ½ lived in cities, more in southern Calif.

  28. V. Wartime Migrations(cont.) • 25,000 men served in the armed forces • Served as “code talkers” • They transmitted radio messages in their native languages, which were incomprehensible to the Germans and Japanese. • Rubbing together created some violent friction: • Mexican Americans in Los Angeles were viciously attacked by Anglo sailors • Brutal race riot killed 25 blacks and 9 whites in Detroit.

  29. Map 35-1 p805

  30. p806

  31. p806

  32. p807

  33. VI. Holding the Home Front • Americans on the home front suffered little: • The war invigorated the economy • Lifted the country out of a decade-long depression • The gross national product rose from $100 billion in 1940 to more than $200 billion in 1945 • Corporate profits rose from $6 billion in 1940 to almost twice that amount four years later • Despite wage ceiling, overtime pay fattened pay envelopes.

  34. VI. Holding the Home Front(cont.) • Prices rose up to 33% in 1948 • The hand of the government touched lives more • Post-1945 era of big-government interventionism • Households felt the constraints of the rationing system • Millions, men/women, worked for the government in the armed forces • Millions worked in the defense industries • The Office of Scientific Research and Development channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into univer-sity-based scientific research—establishing partner-ships with the government.

  35. V. Holding the Home Front(cont.) • Government dollars swept unemployment from the land • War, not enlightened social policy, cured the depression • 1941-1945 as the origins of a “warfare-welfare state.” • The conflict was phenomenally expensive • War bill amounted to more than $330 billion— • 10 times the direct cost of World War I • Twice as much as all previous federal spending since 1776 • Roosevelt would have preferred a pay-as-you-go • The cost was simply too gigantic

  36. V. Holding the Home Front(cont.) • The income tax net was expanded and the rate rose as high as 90% • Only two-fifths of the war costs were paid from current revenues • The remainder was borrowed • The national debt skyrocketed from $49 billion in 1941 to $259 billion in 1945 (see Figure 35.1). • When production slipped into high gear, the war was costing about $10 million an hour • That was the price of victory over such implacable enemies.

  37. VII. The Rising Sun in the Pacific • Early successes of the efficient Japanese militarists were breathtaking: • They would have to win quickly or lose slowly • They expanded into the Far Eastern bastions: • American outposts of Guam, Wake, the Philippines • They seized the British-Chinese city port of Hong Kong and British Malaya • They plunged into the snake-infested jungles of Burma • They lunged southward against the oil-rich Dutch East Indies

  38. VII. The Rising Sun in the Pacific(cont.) • Better news came from the Philippines, which succeeded in slowing down the Japanese • When the Japanese landed, General Douglas MacArthur withdrew to a strong defensive position at Bataan, not far from Manila: • Here 20,000 American troops, supported by a force of ill-trained Filipinos, held off the Japanese attacks until April 9, 1942 • Before the inevitable American surrender, MacArthur was ordered to depart secretly for Australia

  39. VII. The Rising Sun in the Pacific(cont.) • His army remnants were treated with vicious cruelty in the infamous eighty-mile Bataan Death March to prisoner-of-war camps: • First in a series of atrocities committed by both sides. • The island fortress of Corregidor, in Manila harbor, • Held out until May 6, 1942, when it too surrendered • Which left Japanese forces in complete control of the Philippine archipelago (see Map 35.2).

  40. Figure 35-1 p808

  41. VIII. Japan’s High Tide at Midway • The Japanese continual march: • Invaded New Guinea, and landed on the Solomon Islands • Their onrush finally checked by a crucial naval battle fought in the Coral Sea, May 1942 • America, with Australian support, inflicted heavy losses on the victory-flushed Japanese • First time the fighting was done by carrier-based aircraft • Japan next undertook to seize Midway Island: • Epochal Battle of Midway, June 3-6, 1942—Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, fighting done by aircraft and the Japanese broke action after losing four vitally important carriers.

  42. VIII. Japan’s High Tide at Midway(cont.) • Midway was a pivotal battle: • Combined with the Battle of the Coral Sea, the U.S. success at Midway halted Japan’s fighting • They did get America’s islands of Kiska and Attu • These victories caused fear of an invasion of the United States through Alaska • Japanese imperialists, overextended in 1942, suffered from “victory disease” • Their appetites were bigger than their stomachs

  43. Map 35-2 p809

  44. p809

  45. IX. American Leapfrogging Toward Tokyo • America seized the initiative in the Pacific: • In 1942 American gained a toehold on Guadalcanal Island • Japanese troops evacuated the island in February, 1943 • Japan losses were 20,000, compared to 1,700 for the Americans • American and Australian forces under General Douglas MacArthur held on in New Guinea, the last buffer protecting Australia • The scales of war began to tip.

  46. IX. American Leapfrogging Toward Tokyo (cont.) • The U.S. Navy, with marines and army divisions, began “leapfrogging” the Japanese-held islands in the Pacific • As the American forces drove toward Tokyo, they reduced the fortified Japanese outposts • Island hopping strategy called for: • Bypassing the most heavily fortified Japanese posts • Capturing nearby islands • Setting up airfields on them • Then neutralizing the enemy bases through heavy bombing • Deprived of essential supplies from the homeland, Japan’s outpost would slowly wither on the vine—as they did.

  47. IX. American Leapfrogging Toward Tokyo (cont.) • Brilliant success crowned American attacks on the Japanese island strongholds in the Pacific: • Islands were being recaptured from the Japanese • Especially prized were the Marianas, including America’s conquered Guam • Assault on the Marianas opened June 19, 1944: • 250 Japanese antiaircraft destroyed, with only a loss of 29 American planes

  48. IX. American Leapfrogging Toward Tokyo (cont.) • The following day, in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, U.S. naval forces sank several Japanese carriers • The Japanese navy never recovered • A mass suicide leap of surviving Japanese soldiers and civilians from “Suicide Cliff,” the major islands of Marianas fell to U.S. attackers in July-August, 1944 • Bombing of Japan began November 1944 (see Map 35.3)

  49. X. The Allied Halting of Hitler • Hitler entered the war in 1942: • The tide of subsea battle turned slowly • The old techniques of warfare were being strengthened by new methods: • Air patrol • The newly invented technology of radar • The bombing of submarine bases • Eventually Allied antisubmarine tactics improved: • British code breakers • 1945 the Allies had the upper hand against the U-boat.

  50. X. The Allied Halting of Hitler(cont.) • The turning point of the land-air war against Hitler had come late in 1942: • British had launched a thousand-plane raid on Cologne in May • In August they joined the American air force with cascading bombs on German cities • The Germans under Marshal Erwin Rommel—the “Desert Fox”—drove across North Africa into Egypt • In October 1942, British general Bernard Montgomery delivered an attack at El Alamein, west of Cairo • With the aid of American tanks, he speedily drove the enemy back to Tunisia.

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