War On Two Fronts

1. War On Two Fronts • America’s unity and confidence was tested in the first months of 1942 as the war was going very badly with Britain ready to collapse and the Soviet Union staggering

2. War On Two Fronts • Japan airplanes attacked US airfields at Manila, 3 days later Guam fell to Japan, then Wake Island and Hong Kong as well, Singapore surrendered in February, Dutch East Indies in March, Burma in April and Philippines in May.

3. War On Two Fronts • General Douglas MacArthur: move north from Australia through New Guinea, eventually to the Philippines, Admiral Chester Nimitz: move west from Hawaii toward major Japanese island outposts in the central Pacific- eventually two forces would come together to invade Japan

4. War On Two Fronts • Battle of Coral Sea: first important victory, turned back Japanese fleet, Midway Island: despite great losses US was victorious, Guadalcanal: struggle of terrible ferocity continued for 6 months, Japanese forced to abandon the island, by mid 1943 Japanese advance had come to a stop

5. World War II in the Pacific

6. War On Two Fronts • European war: fighting in cooperation w. Britain, exiled "Free French", Soviet Union, General George C. Marshall: plan for major Allied invasion of France across the English Channel

7. War On Two Fronts • Roosevelt didn’t know whether to support the British plan that would antagonize the Soviets and might delay the important cross-channel invasion, but he knew invasion of Europe and was reluctant to wait for American forces to go into combat, In the end he decided to support the British plan

8. War On Two Fronts • British opened counteroffensive against Nazi forces in North Africa under Rommel- forced Germans to retreat from Egypt, North Africa campaign tied up a large portion of the Allied resources and contributed to postponement of the planned May 1943 cross-channel invasion of France, Results: produced angry complaints from Soviet Union.

9. World War II in North Africa and Italy

10. War On Two Fronts • Stalingrad: Red Army held off a major German assault- Hitler couldn't continue his eastern assault due to all the losses, Results of Soviet Victory: decimated the civilian population (up to 20 million casualties), persuaded Roosevelt to agree to a British plan for an Allied invasion of Sicily

11. War On Two Fronts • July 9,1943: American and British armies conquered Sicily, Mussolini's government collapsed, Pierto Badoglio: Mussolini's successor committed Italy to the Allies, Results of invasion on Italy: postpones the invasion of France by as much as a year, deeply embittering Soviet Union- gave them time to begin moving toward the countries of eastern Europe

12. War On Two Fronts • As early as 1942, high officials in Washington had evidence that Hitler’s forces were rounding up Jews, taking them to concentration camps and killing them, death toll ultimately 6 million Jews and approx. 4 million others

13. War On Two Fronts • American consistently resisted almost all such entreaties, pleas that the planes try to destroy the crematoria at the camp were rejected as militarily unfeasible

14. War On Two Fronts • News of the atrocities of the Holocaust created public pressure for an Allied effort to end the killing, American government consistently resisted almost all such entities, St. Louis: ship carrying Jewish refugees refused entry and forced to return to Europe, deliberate effort in the State Department by Breckinridge Long an anti-Semite to prevent Jews from entering the US in large numbers, insisted they could not help the concentration camps - instead focused on winning the war

15. The American People in Wartime • WWII had its most profound impact on the American domestic life by ending the Great Depression, most important agent of new prosperity was federal spending: gross national product soared, personal incomes increased, demands of wartime production created a shortage of consumer goods, many wage earners diverted much of their new affluence into savings

16. The American People in Wartime • Government created large manufacturing facilities in California and elsewhere to serve needs of military, Henry Kaiser: built major infrastructure with government money in the west, created major shipbuilding, steel, magnesium and aluminum production, Changes of the West: among the most important manufacturing areas in the country, fastest growing region in the nation after the war

17. The American People in Wartime • WWII created major labor shortage: took 15 million men and women out of civilian work force, WWII gave enormous boost to union membership- rose to over 13 million, Little Steel formula: set a 15% limit on wartime wage increases, No- Strike Pledge: unions agreed not to stop production in wartime, in return the government provided a Maintenance of Membership agreement: ensured new workers would be automatically enrolled in the unions, continued health of the union organizations

18. The American People in Wartime • After the United Mine Workers defied the government by striking, Congress passed the Smith-Connally Act (War Labor Disputes Act): required unions to wait 30 days before striking and empowered the president to seize a struck war plant, Anti-Inflation Act: gave the administration authority to freeze agricultural prices, wages, salaries and rents, Office of Price Administration (OPA): enforced provisions of the act, but there was widespread resentment of its controls over wages and prices

19. The American People in Wartime • From 1941-1945 the federal government spent a total of $321 billion-twice as much as it had spent over its entire 150 years in existence, national debt rose to 259 billion: raised money by borrowing half the revenues it needed by selling 100 billion worth in bonds, rest raised by income taxes, the Revenue Act of 1942: established a 94% rate for the highest brackets, took money from poorest families as well

20. The American People in Wartime • War Production Board (WPB): Donald Nelson, was to be a "super agency: with broad powers over the economy”, never able to win control over military purchases, complaints of small business, Office of War Mobilization: James E. Byrnes, slightly more successful

21. The American People in Wartime • The war economy managed to meet almost all the nation’s critical war needs, enormous new factory complexes sprang up in the space of a few months, by the beginning of 1944, American factories were producing more than the government needed, their output was twice of all the Axis countries combined, even complaints that military production was becoming excessive

22. The American People in Wartime • National Defense Research Committee: headed by Vannevar Bush, spent 100 million on research, mass production idea converted to military production.

23. Creation of centimetric radar: used narrow beams of short wavelength that made radar more effective, British and American forces produced new and powerful four-engine bombers.

24. The American People in Wartime • Gee Navigation System: helped pilots plot their exact location, doubled accuracy rate of night bombings, Ultra project: efforts of cryptologist to puzzle out the enemy's systems, decipher coded messages, American Magic operation: broke Japanese coding system, had access to intercepted info

25. The American People in Wartime • Phillip Randolph: president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, insisted government require companies receiving defense contracts to integrate their work forces.

26. The American People in Wartime • Fair Employment Practices Commission: to investigate discrimination against blacks in war industries, migration of blacks from the south to northern industrial cities, bettered economic condition, created urban tensions.

27. The American People in Wartime • Congress of Racial Equality: (CORE): mobilized mass popular resistance to discrimination, sitins and demonstrations in segregated theaters and restaurants

28. The American People in Wartime • Substantial discrimination survived in all the services- traditional pattern of race relations was slowly eroding, number of black servicemen increased to 700,000, some training camps were being integrated, blacks beginning to serve on ships with white sailors and more black units were being sent into combat.

29. The American People in Wartime • Code-talkers: Native Americans working in military communications and speaking their own languages over the radio and telephones, many left reservations for jobs: instance on assimilation

30. The American People in Wartime • Little work reached the tribes and government subsidies dwindled, many young people left the reservation, some to serve in the military and even more to work in the war plants, this brought many Indians into intimate contact with the white society for the first time and awakened in some the taste for material good, which would remain after the war, others found that jobs once available during the was became unavailable again

31. The American People in Wartime • Large numbers of Mexican workers entered the US • Braceros (contract laborers) would be admitted to the US for a limited time to work at specific jobs, able to find significant numbers of factory jobs: formed the second largest group of migrants (after blacks) to American cities, sudden expansion of Mexican-American neighborhoods created tensions in some American cities.

32. The American People inWartime • Pachucos: street gangs, distinctive clothing- zoot suit: unconventional styles seemed hostile and threatening. • Zoot-Suit Riots: four day riot in LA, white sailors invaded Mexican American communities and attacked zoot-suiters, police arrested Mexicans for fighting back, LA passed a law prohibiting the wearing of zoot suits

33. The American People in Wartime • Number of women in the work force increased by 60%: likely to be married, older than most women who had entered the work force in the past, many factory owners continued to categorize jobs by gender, but they began taking on heavy industrial work that had once been considered men's work.

34. The American People in Wartime • Rosie the Riveter: symbolized the new importance of the female industrial work force.

35. The American People in Wartime • Government girls: female clerks, secretaries and typists who worked in bureaucracies.

36. The American People inWartime • Latchkey children, 8 hour orphans: lack of child care, Juvenile crime rose, more then a third of all teens between the ages of 14 and 18 were employed late in the war, divorce rate rose rapidly, rise in birth rate, increase in marriages and lower age in marry- would become the great postwar baby boom

37. The American People in Wartime • The book, theater and movie industries sis record business, magazines were at the peak of their popularity, satisfying the seemingly insatiable hunger of readers for pictures of and stories about the war, Resort hotels, casinos, and racetracks were jammed with customers and dance halls were popular

38. The American People in Wartime • Claimed to be fighting for the comforts of home, rather than character of the enemy, • Betty Grable: most famous pinup, fighter pilots gave their planes female names and painted beauties on their nosecones • USOs recruited thousands of young women to serve as hostess who were expected to dress nicely, dance well, and chat happily with lonely men

39. The American People in Wartime • There was a serious teacher shortage in many communities

40. The American People in Wartime • No general censorship of dissident publications, Government generally left socialists and communists alone, On the whole, war worked to blur ethnic distinctions.

41. The American People in Wartime • Propaganda encouraged Americans to think that the Japanese were devious, malign, cruel people, Government questioned Japanese- American loyalty, President authorized the army to "intern" the Japanese Americans

42. The American People in Wartime • Traditional racial and ethnic hostilities had not disappeared, restrictions imposed on some Italian Americans provisions forbidding many of them to travel and the actual imprisonment of several hundred, but on the whole seemed share the view that the enemy was less the German and Italian people than the vicious political system to which they had succumbed

43. The American People in Wartime • War Relocation Authority (WRA): more than 100,000 people were rounded up, told to dispose, of their property, and taken to "relocation centers", conditions in internment camps: not brutal, harsh, uncomfortable, never produced significant popular opposition,

44. The American People in Wartime • Korematsu v. US: Supreme Court ruled the relocation was constitutionally permissible, 1943 in an effort to improve relations with government of China, congress finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion Acts, racial animosity towards the Chinese declined- began taking jobs in war plants and other booming areas, higher proportion of Chinese Americans were drafted than any other national group

45. The American People in Wartime • President began to turn to attempts at winning the war, instead of reform programs, in the 1944 Election: Republicans nominated Dewey, Democrats chose Roosevelt along with Harry S. Truman (moderate) as vice president, the election revolved around domestic economic issues and indirectly the presidents health, Roosevelt won.

46. The Defeat of the Axis • By early 1844 American and British bombers were attacking German industrial installations and other targets almost around the clock, especially devasting was the massive bombings of Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin

47. The Defeat of the Axis • Strategic bombing: destroyed 3/4ths of Dresden, demoralized population, destroyed industrial facilities

48. The Defeat of the Axis • June 6, 1944 D-Day: landed on the coast of Normandy, while airplanes and battleships offshore bombarded Nazi defenses, 4,000 vessels landed troops and supplies on the beaches, on August 25 Free French forces arrived in Paris and liberated the city.

49. The Defeat of the Axis • Battle of the Bulge: battle ended serious German resistance in the west, Soviet forces were sweeping westward into central Europe and the Balkans, Allied troops were soon pouring across the Rhine- German resistance was now broken on both fronts, April 30: with soviet forces on the outskirts of Berlin Adolf Hitler killed himself, May 8, 1945 the remaining German forces surrendered unconditionally

50. The Defeat of the Axis • In February 1944 American naval forces under Nimitz won a series of victories in the Marshall Islands, within a month the navy destroyed other vital Japanese bastions