The American Pageant

1. The American Pageant Chapter 35: America in WWII

2. First things first… • After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, politicians "getting Germany first“ • Help the Soviet Union and Britain so they would help us later.

3. Social Effects of WWII • Japanese Internment • Supreme court case: Korematsu vs. U.S. (1944) • End of New Deal Reform Era • End of CCC, WPA, NYA

4. The War Machine • War Production Board (WPB) • Produced weaponry (guns and planes) • Halted car production • rationing of gasoline • Office of Price Administration (OPA) • Regulated increased prices brought on by boom • War Labor Board (WLB) • Imposed ceilings on wage increases

5. New Job Opportunities • Braceros – Mexicans brought in by the thousands to work in agriculture • Native Americans served in the armed forces.  • Comanches in Europe and Navajos in the Pacific made such valuable contributions as code talkers • Women • 216,000 employed by armed forces • At the height of the war, there were 19,170,000 women in the labor force.

7. Wartime Migration • 1.6 million blacks left for the West and North.  • A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a massive "Negro March on Washington" in 1941 • Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) forbid discrimination in defense industries.

8. Other Japanese Conquests • Attacked the American outposts of Guam, Wake, and the Philippines. • In the Philippines, American forces, led by General MacArthur, surrendered on April 9, 1942.   • The island fortress of Corregidor held out until it surrendered on May 6, 1942, giving the Japanese complete control of the Philippines.

9. Battle at the Coral Sea • May 1942 • Japanese v. U.S and Australia • First action with aircraft carriers • Japanese tactical victory but stopped Japanese expansion

11. Battle at Midway • June 4th, 1942 • Most important Pacific campaign • Japan planned to lure US into trap • Codebreakers determined details of plan • U.S. set up own ambush • Heavy loses weakened Japanese Navy • American navy far superior

13. Island-hopping (or leapfroging) • The U.S. Navy strategy in the Japanese-held islands in the Pacific.  • The strategy dictated that the American forces, would reduce the fortified Japanese outposts.  • Set up airfields and then neutralizing the enemy bases through heavy bombing.  • The outposts would then die due to lack of essential supplies from the homeland. .

14. Allied Halting of Hitler • Hitler had entered the war with U-Boats.  • Allies used old techniques, such as dropping depth bombs from destroyers. • The turning point - 1942.  • Battle of El Alamein: drove the Germans all the way back to Tunisia. (North Africa) • In September 1942, the Soviets repelled Hitler's attack on Stalingrad, capturing thousands of German soldiers.  • (The turning point in the war in the Soviet Union.)

16. Fall of Sicily • Allied forces captured Sicily in August 1943.  • In September1943, Italysurrendered unconditionally and Mussolini was overthrown.  • Germans would not let the Allies take control of Italy. 

17. Planning for D-day • Teheran Conference (Churchill + Roosevelt) • agreement on broad plans, especially those for launching Soviet attacks on Germany from the east simultaneously with the Allied assault from the west. • General Eisenhower was given command. • French Normandy was chosen for the point for invasion • less heavily defended than other parts of the European coast. 

19. D-Day: June 6th, 1944 • On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the enormous operation took place.  • After desperate fighting, the Allies finally broke out of the German ring that enclosed the beach.  • General George S. Patton led armored divisions across France extremely fast and efficiently.  • Paris was liberated in August1944.

22. End of Hitler • On December 16, 1944, Hitler threw all of his forces against the thinly held American lines in the Ardennes Forest.  • The Americans were driven back, creating a deep "bulge" in the Allied line.  • halted by the 101st Airborne Division (Battle of the Bulge.) • The Soviets reached and captured Berlin in April 1945.  Hitlercommittedsuicide on April 30, 1945.

23. Concentration Camps • In April1945, General Eisenhower's troops reached the Elbe River, finding the concentrationcamps where the Nazis had murdered over 6 million Jews.  Not until the war's end did all of the atrocities of the "Holocaust" appear.

27. The End in Europe • The Soviets reached and captured Berlin in April 1945.  Hitlercommittedsuicide on April 30, 1945. • On April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage.  Harry S Truman took over the presidency. • On May 7, 1945, the German government surrendered unconditionally.

28. Iwo Jima (Feb. 1945) • Strategic point in Pacific • took US America over one month to take. • The Marines lost 6,891 men killed and 18,070 wounded. • Out of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers on the island, only 212 were taken prisoners. • What the battle did show the Americans was how far the Japanese would go to defend their country – a decision that was to influence the use of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

29. The Atomic Bombs • The Potsdam conference near Berlin in 1945 sounded the death of the Japanese.  • Truman and Stalin • Ultimatum to Japan:  surrender or be destroyed. • On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was   • With the Japanese still refusing to surrender, the “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. 

30. Enola Gay

31. Bombing of Hiroshima

33. Effects of the Atomic Bomb • Hiroshima • 70,000 initially dead • 5 year death toll:200,000 • Nagasaki • 40,000 initially dead • 140,000 within 5 years

34. End of the Pacific War • On August 8, Stalin invaded the Japanese defenses of Manchuria and Korea. • After the Japanese still refused to surrender, “Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. • On August 10, 1945, Tokyo surrendered under the condition that Hirohito be allowed to remain the emperor.  • The Allies accepted this condition on August 14, 1945.  The formal end to the war came on September 2, 1945.

35. The Effect on America • American forces suffered some 1 million casualties in WWII, while the SovietUnion suffered nearly 20 million. • After the war, much of the world was destroyed while America was virtually left untouched.  • The nation was better prepared for the war than any other nation because it had begun to prepare about a year and a half before the war officially began.