us_ch9_info

=**America and World War II Background Information**=

The new challenge to America was that we had two determined and capable enemies who would be at war with the U.S. at the same time. Nazi Germany had ability and technological potential to launch devastating attacks on the U.S. The Empire of Japan gained more territory and controlled more people in a shorter time than the Romans, Mongols, or Muslim Empires.
 * __Democracy in Peril__:**

__**"The Americans Will Be Overawed"**__**:** The Nazi war tactics were called **Blitzkrieg** ("lightning war"), or strike hard and fast for short and quick battles. The Nazi Panzer (tank) divisions would push through Europe. This idea was also used by Japan since both realized that they needed to get as many oil reserves as possible or they'd quickly lose.

Japan lacked the industrial and technological ability to win, but the military called the shots and the Bushido warrior code along with assassination of dissenters sealed Japan's deal, which was a pro-war mentality. The Japanese had been in China in the 1930s and at war since 1937 (Second Sino-Japanese War), but by 1940 still didn't have complete control of China. Most in Japan's inner circle didn't see war with the U.S. as wise, but by 1940 no Japanese official openly criticized the momentum toward war. One who did see danger was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto who was educated in America. When he raised concerns, imperial warlords transferred him to sea duty.

Military control of Japan would be complete by October of 1941 when Hideki Tojo became Premier. This ended all chances of a diplomatic solution as Tojo favored a quick knock out blow to the U.S. Most Westerners couldnt' grasp the Bushido-Japanese warrior code that demanded death over "loss of face." Japan saw the only chance of citory as knocking out the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, while hitting other targets in the Pacific at the same time. It was the most ambitious operation ever and it came close to complete success.

After the fall of France in 1940, the French colonies in Africa and the Pacific were up for grabs. Japan eventually took control of French bases in the Pacific. The U.S. passed the Export Control Act restricting sales of arms and other materials to Japan. This would hurt Japan since they were completely dependent on foreign oil.
 * __Back Door to War__:**

Japan signed the **Tripartite Pact** with Germany and Italy in 1940, mainly as a way to get British possessions. In the eyes of Westerners, Japanese warlords were no different than Hitler or Mussolini. Hitler hoped Japan would open a second front with the USSR in Siberia, but Japan, looking for oil, signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets in April of 1941. Japan moved to take Indochina, leading the U.S. to put an oil embargo on Japan and froze their assets in the U.S. Japan had a 2 year supply of oil left in peace time conditions, but less than a year's worth of "war oil." Regardless, Japan had already committed itself to war with the U.S. in January of 1941. The U.S. had cracked Japan's code in December of 1940 and saw that it was clear they intended to expand in the Pacific.

__**"A Date Which Will Live in Infamy"**__**:** Japan began planning the attack on Pearl Harbor in the summer of 1941. The plan was to hit Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and Malaysia. No one thought Japan had the ability. Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short were in charge of Hawaii's defenses and despite repeated war warnings, they never put the fleet or air fields on full alert. American ships were lined up in what was called "battleship row" and the planes were grouped together as well. They were basically sitting ducks.

The Japanese attacked methodically with deadly efficiency and took out the air power then hit "battleship row" sinking or damaging each one. The worst was the **//U.S.S. Arizona//**, which went down in 10 minutes with over 1,000 sailors on board. The attack achieved the element of surprise. It was devised by **Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto**. The date was **December 7, 1941**, which the next day in a speech FDR said was a "date which will live in infamy." However, it was not a complete success. Yamamoto had called off the third wave when he saw he no longer had the element of surprise. First, the aircraft carriers were not there due to toher missions. Yamamoto expected to lose 30% of his force, but only lost a midget submarine and a handful of aircraft. This is because the carriers weren't there. Yamamoto's error was that he took his winnings and left rather than wait and fight the carriers too. Second, the oil storage facilities were not hit. Third, U.S. forces were still able to operate out of Hawaii and not forced to operate out of California. Yamamoto said he feels alls they did was "//awaken the sleeping giant//." This proved to be true since the attack outraged the public and galvanced and unified Americans.

The U.S. declared war on Japan on Dec. 8, 1941. Italy and Germany declared war on the U.S. Dec. 11, which made it a world war. War with Germany seemed inevitable anyways with U-boats sinking U.S. ships and the House of Representatives voting to allow the arming of merchant ships. The sinking of the //Reuben James// justified war, but FDR thought isolationists wouldn't allow support for war and many didn't think Europe's war would impact America. If the U.S. entered earlier, some of Hitler's victories could have been avoilded along with much of the Holocaust. It became clear that the American economy (the sleeping giant) won the war.

Opposite of Vietnam a few decades later, in December of 1941 the only Americans lying about their ages were those trying to get into the armed forces. Men (16 million) and women (245,000) both volunteered for service. There were famous Americans (actors and those with wealth) who also joined the fight. Songs and movies in America would promote the war effort. The young men who went to war came from a generation whose parents never saw an ocean, whose longest journey was from one state to another, who didn't lock their doors at night.
 * __Democracy's Industrial Tsunami__:**

Aside from the soldiers, winning the war came from American industry, which doubled the output of the entire Axis. Once businesses saw FDR wasn't going to undercut them with government policies, the American economy expanded. Russian soldiers and American dollars were essential in 1943. The USSR held off the Germans at Moscow and Stalingrad (turning point on eastern front), but the outcome wasn't definte until Kursk in July of 1943 and when the Allies invaded Sicily on the western front to start a two-front war. The Russians wouldn't win major eastern front battles until the U.S. war capacity forced the Germans to shift power to the western front as 20% of Soviet armored brigades used at Kursk were Lend-Lease American made products. The U.S. contributed 100-octane aviation fuel, which improved performance of Soviet planes and waterproof telephone wire, which the USSR couldn't produce, but relied on.

The U.S. had more production than anyone and still poured government funds into the **Manhattan Project**, with the goal of producing the Atomic bomb. In addition, Liberty Ships built by Henry Kaiser became a major part of production. Kaiser was aware that workers needed homes, so he made the first modular homes. He had to use cheaper steel, which he found would break apart in icy water. Therefore, he welded additional steel support beams instead of using rivets. Andrew Jackson Higgins, another shipbuilder, designed a new shallow draft wodded boat specifically for invaded the sandy beaches and coral atolls in the Pacific. He had originally built fishing and pleasure boats in Nebraska. After the war, when General Eisenhower was asked who proved most valuable to the Allies' victory (expecting a name like MacArthur, Nimitz, Bradley, or Patton), he answered Higgins was "the man who won the war."

The war allowed FDR to accelerate implementation of the New Deal. He wanted a 99.5% tax on income over 100,000, but it failed to pass Congress, so he issued an executive order taxing 100% of income earned over $25,000. In 1943, the government began to withhold taxes from pay checks (done today) so people wouldn't have to pay their taxes at the end of the year --- government can conceal real tax burden. Today, this is done and it's much easier for the federal and state governments to increase taxes without much public attention. Many who favored limited government would like to remove withholdings and have the public pay a one-time tax fee due the last week of October...right before election day!

Rationing became necessary on oil, gas, cotton, rubber, tin, and aluminum. A popular phrase of the day that made it into movies and cartoons was "is this trip really necessary?" Citizens willingly rationed and took part in scrap metal drives. Sears, Roebuck president Donald M. Nelson headed the War Production Board. Car and truck production halted and factories were converted to tanks and armored personnel carriers. War demands were much steeper than WWI. FDR created the Office of War Mobilization in 1943 headed by former Supreme Court judge James Byrnes. He said price didn't matter, but performance and delivery did. Costs were high and the national debt went from $48 billion to $247 billion, which illustrated the fear isolationists had about going to war and confirmed the fears of the rise of a permanent bureaucracy. Surveillance and intelligence gathering meant Americans would sacrifice liberty for the war effort. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created to gather intelligence and conduct psychological warfare (frontrunner of the CIA). Ironically, individual effort, self-reliance, and capitalism (which New Dealers opposed) was what was needed to fight although government-backed science did get the "ultimate weapon" - the A-bomb. Experiments on splitting the atom were conducted in 1932 in England and by war time scientists knew an atomic explosion could be done. FDR had gotten a letter from Albert Einstein urging him to build one before the Nazis. His influence got the A-bomb in the U.S.

Army Chief of Staff, **George Marshall**, was in charge of mobilizing and building the military. The draft had already been instituted and enlistments increased after Pearl Harbor. Uniforms were labeled G.I. meaning Government Issued. Blacks fought as well but in segregated units. In Pittsburgh, A. Philip Randolph pushed the **Double V Campaign** to fight Hitler's racism and racism at home. The Tuskegee Airmen were black pilots. Native Americans served as code talkers, especially the use of the Navajo code in the Pacific. Women went to work in factories with **"Rosie the Riveter"** as the symbol of working women. Mexicans were encouraged to come to work on American farms in the **Bracero Program**. Pennsylvania was the "Arsenal of America" with PA mills producing more than Germany and Japan. Also, Governor Edward Martin efficiently oversaw the war effort in PA. The Horseshoe Curve was the major way of getting raw materials to the PA mills and finished products to the coast and it was actually a target of the Nazis. Indiantown Gap trained soldiers; Carlisle was a major medial training center; Harrisburg was an intelligence training center; Johnstown and Pittsburgh mines and mills were important; Butler produced jeeps for cheap travel in Germany.

FDR and Churchill feared that Hitler would get the atomic bomb. They were unaware that Germany began plans for an intercontinental rocket and they (the Germans) developed a plane that could fly 500 MPH and went to New York and back taking pictures, which proved they could bomb NYC. This led to the **Germany First Strategy** of focusing first on Germany then Japan. On January 1, 1942, 26 nations at war with the Axis signed the **Declaration of the United Nations**, which would be based on the Atlantic Charter and also agreed to the Germany First Strategy. Churchill was concerned about Stalin, but FDR trusted him. FDR relied on naive reports from ambassador Joseph Davies. Churchill needed U.S. war materials so he couldn't press FDR. Churchill and FDR met at Casablanca and agreed to Germany First and to unconditional surrender of the Axis. This is seen in that 80% of the American war capacity went to Europe mostly in bombing Germany to get ready for an invasion. The goal was to gain control of the skies. Strategic bombing proved successful siphoning German military from the eastern front and hindered Germany's war production especially in transport and oil. Gas reserves were cut 90% and rail transportation cut 75%. Also, Germany lost numerous planes and pilots when defending.
 * __War Strategy: Casablanca__:**

Many Americans had turned their attention on the Pacific where Japan took Britain's powerful naval base Singapore in February of 1942. The British surrendered from the legend of the invincible Japanese, but if they fought they could've won with Japan low on ammunition. Australia was all that stood in the way, but struggled to defend themselves since they were held back by socialism and labor unions who refused to modify contracts to aid the war (example: Australian unions refused to work when it was raining). Americans under **General Douglas MacArthur** were forced out of the Philippines and 11,000 U.S. and Filipino soldiers were marched inland on hot jungle roads without food or water in what was called the **Bataan Death March**. This showed that the Japanese were as vicious as the Nazis. "Remember Pearl Harbor" and "Remember Bataan" were rallying cries for Americans.
 * __Remember Bataan__:**

There would be fears that Japan would invade mainland U.S. after a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of Oregon and shelled the coast. As a result, FDR put Japanese-Americans into internment or relocation camps in **Executive Order #9066**. In these camps, the Japanese-Americans were given freedoms and treated humanely unlike German concentration camps. To answer why German and Italians weren't given the same treatment, the answer is that the east coast wasn't threatened by Germany or Italy.

Allied victory seemed like a long way off in the Pacific with Japan taking Burma and shutting the Burma Road, the main supply route to China). The U.S. conducted the **Doolittle Raids** led by Colonel James Doolittle in which a small U.S. force took off from carriers, bombed Japan, and then headed for China and would hope to avoid capture by Japanese. This was mostly done to send a message to Japan that America was going to fight. It took place in April of 1942. The **Battle of the Coral Sea** would be the first time Japan was stopped from achieving its goal. However, it did leave the U.S. with only two aircraft carriers.

Admiral Yamamoto moved toward Midway island to force the last two U.S. carriers into the open to destroy them. Japane failed to knock out Midway's air fields, so they needed a second attack. Japanese scout planes found the carriers, so Yamamoto ordered them to be attacked. This required different armament so the Japanese planes had to land and re-arm. In the meantime, American planes came and attacked Japan. All were shot down, but this forced Japanese planes to land and refuel. More American planes came and wiped them out. This battle, the **Battle of Midway**, led by **Admiral Chester Nimitz**, was the turning point in the Pacific.
 * __Miracle at Midway__:**

The Soviet Union was looking for relief on the eastern front and pressed the U.S. and Britain to invade Europe to get a second front to force Hitler into a two-front war. However, this wouldn't be the easiest task to accomplish since Hitler's Atlantic Wall would be very tough to attack. A vital yet hidden front where the war was fought from January of 1942 through July of 1943. German U-boats conducted an undersea war against American shipping to Britain and the USSR. U.S. industrial might was useless if it couldn't get to the Allies. German **Admiral Karl Doenitz** kept the Allies off balance by moving around the Atlantic. U.S. **Admiral Ernest King** combined air cover with escorts (small carriers that could launch anti-submarine aircraft quickly) along with the convoy system and was able to turn the Battle of the Atlantic around. New location devices included **sonar** to find submarines and **radar** to locate aircraft. If Hitler had shifted resources to build more U-boats, results could've been disatrous for the Allies. Espionage (spying) was important with the **Enigma Machine**, which could send and receive coded messages.
 * __End of the Thousand Year Reich__:**

Success of Germany in North Africa under **General Erwin Rommel**, the "Desert Fox," showed the Allies of the necessity of retaking North Africa. Allied Operation Torch was successful and took control of North Africa after the turning point **Battle of El Alamein**. Rommel was able to escape and supervise the construction of the Atlantic Wall. Hitler didn't take much from the eastern front, but now Italy and Sicily was open and Hitler would eventually have to take soldiers from the eastern front to use against the Allies in a second front. After the Allies deceived Hitler in Operation Mincemeat, they invaded Sicily and Italy. The Italians were happy to see the Allies shouting "down with Mussolini" and Italian soldiers were surrendering by the thousands. Hitler had to take soldiers from the eastern front to use in Italy, which allowed the Soviets to take Kursk. In addition, the Allies took control of Italy. The Army Air Force, led by **General Henry "Hap" Arnold** (from PA) was strategically bombing Germany.

Admiral King's effective anti-U-boat campaign and the ability to gain air superiority allowed goods and supplies to get to Europe in 1943. **General Dwight D. Eisenhower** was put in command in Europe and would plan **Operation Overlord**, the D-Day cross-channel invasions on the beaches of Normandy in France. Looking back, it seemed like a sure Allied victory since the Allies controlled the air and sea lanes and outnumbered the Germans. Also, French and Belgium resistance groups were fighting the Germans behind their lines. There were dangers though and it could have all collapsed at a number of points. Allied bombing had already limited the Luftwaffe and Germany's regular army and defense positions. The U.S. attacked the beachheads code named Utah Beach and Omaha Beach. Rommel defended Omaha Beach and saw the beaches as the place that was the only place the Allies could be defeated and believed the Germans had to defeat the Allies when they were in the water coming ashore. He observed and stated this would be "the longest day."
 * __The Longest Day__:**

General Eisenhower had to consider the weather and knew that bad weather could do as much damage as the Germans. Heavy winds and rains stopped the original date of June 4, but on the night of June 5, the attack began since the forecast gave a 36 hour window or had to wait a month. June 6, 1944 is the official date of D-Day. Ships began to cross the channel and airborne and glider troops dropped behind enemy lines to disrupt communication and transportation areas as well as hold key bridges. Eisenhower wrote two letters, one on success and the other his resignation for failure, which shows that the Allies knew it could go either way. General George Patton was back in the field for the Allies and he was a major asset in moving the Allies through Europe. The weather, not Hitler, slowed the Allies.

The election of 1944 saw FDR win his 4th term defeating Thomas Dewey (25 million to 22 million and 432-99 in the electoral vote). The Republicans didn't have much of a platform since they supported the war, but FDR appeased Republican party bosses by dropping left-wing vice president Henry Wallace for the more moderate Harry Truman. In Germany, there was an attempt to change the government with the **July 20 Plot**, which was an attempted assassination of Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, which reflected the desperation of a professional officer class in Germany. Hitler thought victory was still possible even with the eastern front collapsing. He still thought he could split the Allies and force the U.S. to withdraw from the war and then defeat the Soviets in a single-front war. He ordered the **Battle of the Bulge**, a massive counterattack, which was Hitler's last major war effort. Under the cover of winter, it had some early success for the Nazis, but the Allies regained momentum.
 * __A Contrast of Governments__:**

Eisenhower allowed the Soviets to take Berlin and Prague even though Patton wanted the U.S. to take these key cities. This turned out to be a mistake by Eisenhower not seen until the postwar period since the Soviets would look to dominate in that region.

The Soviets closed in on Berlin and established communist regimes in Poland and Hungary. At the **Yalta Conference**, the first of what was to be many conferences on the postwar world, was held from February 4 to 11 in 1945 with the Big Three (FDR, Churchill, and Stalin). FDR entered the alliance with a naive view believing reports from his advisors that Stalin was interested in the traditional balance of power and not eastern Europe being a buffer zone for him or his expansionist ideology. FDR ignored Stalin's mass exterminations, which exceeded Hitler's. FDR told Churchill that he could handle Stalin better than either Foreign Office or his own State Department. FDR admitted that he planned to give Stalin "everything I possibly can and ask nothing in return and therefore he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace." FDR admitted he would violate the Atlantic Charter to work with Stalin. FDR was more obsessed with getting the USSR into the war against Japan and didn't know with certainty when the A-bomb would be ready.
 * __Shaping the Postwar World__:**

Also at Yalta, they agreed on the **Declaration on Liberated Europe** to restore order, relieve distress, and form governments broadly represented by democratic principles. They also agreed to form the **United Nations** after the war to replace the failed League of Nations. In addition, the Big Three agreed to put German and Japanese leaders on trial for war crimes, which would set a precedent for the future. A few months later, in April of 1945, FDR died, which brought Truman to the presidency. When this happened, Hitler assumed that the U.S would pack up and go home. Unlike FDR, President Truman distrusted the USSR and Stalin. The war would shortly come to an end in Europe. Mussolini was captured and killed and Hitler committed suicide in his bunker and on May 7, 1945 German General Alfred Jodl agreed to an unconditional surrender. May 8, 1945 was celebrated as V-E Day.

Hitler was a believer in **eugenics**, the idea that a master race could be achieved. Such ideas began in the U.S. and numerous books were written on the topic. Hitler had made it clear to anyone willing to read his writings or listen to his speeches that from at least 1919 he wanted a Jewish-free Germany. The **Holocaust** was the systematic and bureaucratic execution of over 6 million Jews and other prisoners by the Nazis. The **Nuremberg Laws** passed in 1935, which took citizenship away from the Jews. The first action against the Jews was **Kristallnacht** ("Night of Crystal Glass") in 1938 when Jewish businesses were destroyed and many Jews were killed. Mass killings began with the invasion of Russia as mobile killing squads, called the **Einsatzgruppen**, followed the army and massacred Jews in captured towns. Hitler did his best to not document his Holocaust orders and aimed to keep it secret. The "Final Solution" was terminology used for the extermination of the Jews. The Jews were rounded up by the Nazi secret police, the **Gestapo**, and put into concentration camps, which was controlled by the SS under Heinrich Himmler and his assistant Reinhard Heydrich. Hundreds of Jews were saved by Oskar Schindler who said he needed Jews for cheap labor to work in his factory. This list of Jews needed was **Schindler's List**.
 * __The Holocaust and the Jews__:**

The U.S. government did little to help get Jewish refugees into America or at least away from Hitler. Some call it a failure of fDR while others say his actions were consistent in that of winning the war was the most important objective. Ironically, American Jews stayed loyal to FDR and the Democrat Party despite his unenthusiastic responses to Jewish calls for the creation of Israel. FDR and the State Department opposed the creation of Israel in the area of Palestine. Truman, when he became president, did support an Israeli nation.

After the war, Nazi war criminals were put on trial in the **Nuremberg trials**. The chief prosecutor was U.S Supreme Court justice **Robert Jackson**. Crimes were (1) conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, (2) planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression, (3) war crimes, which includes the murder or deportation of slave labor of civilians in an occupied territory, ill-treatment of POWs, and destruction of civilian towns and cities, and (4) crimes against humanity, or the murder, enslavement, or extermination of a group of people based on race, religion, or political beliefs.

Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur controlled the skies and much of the seas in the Pacific. In addition, Japan lost too many trained pilots, ships, and aircraft at Midway. The U.S. began its new strategy called **island hopping**, in which they would bypass some islands to isolate them and cut off Japanese supply lines without having to take over and secure every Pacific island. An important blow was delivered to Japan at Tarawa, also called "Bloody Tarawa," in which there were a high number of casualties, which did all the Allies to attack the key Japanese naval base at Truk. The Japanese fought to the death as all but 100 of the 5,000 died. Japan tried one last crushing blow at sea against the U.S. Navy, which turned out to be a crushing Japanese defeat in what became known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" in June of 1944 and in the fall of 1944 the U.S. won the Battle of the Philippine Sea. There would also be bloody struggles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, which convinced the U.S. that an invasion of Japan would be costly, which would make the eventual decision to drop the A-bomb an easy decision. The famous Marine flag raising took place on Iwo Jima. With Iwo Jima as a base, bombing Japan intensified and Japan still refused to surrender, which led to taking Okinawa, which put Japan within 350 miles.
 * __On To Japan__:**

Japan began to use kamikazes, suicide bombers who believed they would help bring victory as well as honor. The were called baka bombs (baka was Japanese for idiot). In the Japanese hierarchy, a sharp division arose between military commanders and a peace faction. The warlords carried the day. In June of 1945, Japanese military leaders issued Operation Decision, a massive defensive plan on the home islands to resist American invaders. As the U.S. tightened the noose, the Japanese became more brutal to its prisoners.

On July 16, 1945 "Gadget" was tested 160 miles from the lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The decision to drop the A-bomb was easy for Truman. Japan was still able to defend an invasion with bloody results. Some modern historians criticize using the bomb, but invasion would've cost between 100,000 and 1 million U.S. soldiers and 1 to 9 million Japanese civilians. The A-bomb saved lives in the long run. Consider the statistics: at Tarawa of the 2,571 enemy soldiers only 8 were captured alive; in the Aleutians only 29 of the 2,350; and on Saipan hundreds of civilians refused to surrender and committed suicide. Even after the first bomb was dropped, Japan wasn't ready to surrender and the second A-bomb dropped is what overcame the warlords and brought a quicker peace.
 * __Ground Zero__:**

On August 6, 1945 the first A-bomb was carried on the //Enola Gay// by Colonel Paul Tibbetts and dropped on Hiroshima. This city was chosen since it was a military center. Two days before the city was bombed, U.S. aircraft dropped 750,000 leaflets informing citizens that the city was going to be obliterated, but few Japanese listened to the warning. More than 66,000 people in **Hiroshima** died instantly or soon after the explosion. Japanese leaders called in their own atomic expert to see if they could get the bomb quickly --- hardly a move made by a nation ready to surrender. When they didn't surrender, Truman ordered the second bomb dropped. On August 9, 1945 the second bomb was dropped on **Nagasaki**, another military industrial city. There was still a split in the government on surrender and so the new premier asked the emperor to intervene and Hirohito sided with those who wanted surrender. Dropping the bomb was justified for three reasons: (1) invasion would've cost over 1 million American lives, (2) Japanese warlords weren't going to surrender unless they faced the possibility of annihilation, and (3) the Japanese were as brutal as the Nazis and unconditional surrender was necessary.

The Japanese formally surrendered on the **//U.S.S. Missouri//** on September 2, 1945 with General Douglas MacArthur accepting the surrender. V-J Day was celebrated and a common theme in history - good triumphed over evil.

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