Ch. 24: World War Looms. The Rise of Dictators The roots of WWII went back to the end of WWI and the 1920s. The Treaty of Versailles had left the defeated.

Ch. 24: Ch. 24: World War World War

LoomsLooms

The Rise of Dictators• The roots of WWII went back to the

end of WWI and the 1920s.

• The Treaty of Versailles had left the defeated nations bitter.

• In addition, 3 nations – Germany, Italy, and Japan – felt shut out of the economic growth of the 1920s.

• They envied Britain and France, which had overseas colonies. Colonies gave nations access to raw materials and customers.

• New leaders in Germany, Japan, and Italy promised to expand territory and improve living standards.

• They planned to do this through aggression – attacks on other nations.

Mussolini Mussolini in Italyin Italy

• Italian WWI veteran Benito Mussolini, along with many other Italians, felt shortchanged in the peace settlement after the war.

• In 1919 Mussolini banded together with a group of war veterans to found the revolutionary Fascist Party, the first of its kind.

• The term fascism refers to a political philosophy that values the nation or race above the individual, and may apply to any country that operates its government in this manner.

• The worth of the individual was replaced by the good of the whole society.

• In other words, the individual was there to serve the government.

• During WWII, Italy, Germany, and Japan were ruled by fascist governments that wielded absolute power (totalitarian).

• The fascist powers looked back in history to their nation’s great and glorious past – a crucial difference between them and the communists, who looked forward to a transformation of society in the future

• In 1922 Mussolini and his followers, known as black shirts for the color of their uniforms, threatened to march on Rome unless his authority was recognized.

• King Victor Emmanuel III, who feared the disruption that could occur, asked him to share power with him by becoming Italy’s prime minister.

• Mussolini, calling himself Il Duce (the leader), painted himself as a modernizer and a champion of order and efficiency.

• He challenged Italians to join with him in rebuilding their shattered economy and in restoring Italy’s power in the Mediterranean region.

• Fascists won elections by frightening people into supporting them.

• Black-shirted gangs roamed the streets, smashing the offices of opposing political parties and breaking up their meetings.

• By late 1923, Mussolini had declared himself dictator of all of Italy, making him the western world’s first dictator since a Roman dictator in the 1300s.

• Many Italians, as well as some Americans, saw Mussolini as a model of strength and determination.

• Once in power, he succeeded in bringing energy and discipline to Italian society with a flood of new government economic and social programs.

• Under Mussolini, for example, Italian trains ran on time, and engineers built 400 bridges and 4,000 miles of roads.

• Mussolini also kept his promise to restore Italy’s power in the Mediterranean.

• In Oct. 1935, his armies invaded the African nation of Ethiopia.

• Ethiopian soldiers on horseback, armed with outdated guns and spears, were no match for the bombers and machine guns of the modern Italian army.

• By May 1936, Mussolini controlled Ethiopia.

Hitler in Hitler in GermanyGermany

• Adolph Hitler had been wounded and temporarily blinded in WWI. The War left him feeling enraged by Germany’s defeat and by the degrading terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

• In 1919 Hitler joined the 40-member German Workers’ Party.

• With his powerful public speaking, he soon became a leader in the growing party.

• In 1920, the group changed its name to the National Socialistic German Workers’ Party, more commonly known as the Nazi party.

• The Nazi party included a military organization that eventually became Hitler’s private army called the SA, or Brownshirts.

• Hitler introduced the swastika arm bands to the Nazis. He began calling himself Der Fuhrer (the leader).

• In November 1923, by which time the party’s membership had swelled to 55,000, Hitler and the Nazis attempted to seize power in the city of Munich.

• This effort to overthrow the Weimar Republic (Germany’s government) was known as the Beer Hall Putsch.

• Although many in Munich supported Hitler, the rebellion was put down quickly and Hitler was tried and convicted of high treason, for which he spent 9 months if jail (where he was treated very well).

• During this time he began writing an autobiography entitled Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

• In Mein Kampf Hitler laid out his plans to restore German power.

• Hitler blamed Jews, intellectuals, and Communists for Germany’s decline.

• He also explained Germany’s need for more land, which he called Lebensraum (Living Space).

• Mein Kampf became the bible of the Nazi party.

• Hitler and the Nazis continued their crusade throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

• Hitler promised to stabilize the economy, and revive the German empire that had been shattered by the war.

• Hitler also said that Jews and others who were not blond, blue-eyed members of what he called the “Aryan” or Germanic race had “stabbed Germany in the back” in WWI.

• The Jews, Hitler said, were to blame for Germany’s economic problems.

• The Great Depression was a gift to the Nazis.

• By 1932 unemployment had reached 44% in Germany. Many of these desperate people turned to Hitler as their last hope.

• The Nazis won more votes than any other party in the 1932 elections, and Hitler was appointed chancellor (prime minister) of Germany in 1932.

• Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled the Weimar Republic.

• It its place he established the Third Reich, or Third German Empire.

• In contrast to the first two short-lived German empires, Hitler predicted that the Third Reich would last 1,000 years.

• Hitler convinced the Reichstag (German legislature) to grant him the power to make laws without its consent.

• In June 1934, Hitler demanded that members of the military swear allegiance to him.

• Shortly thereafter, he declared himself dictator.

• With all power concentrated in his hands, Hitler defied the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding the German military.

• In 1936 he took his defiance a step further and sent troops into Germany’s Rhineland, putting German soldiers on the eastern border of France. When Great Britain and France did not resist the action, Hitler’s plans grew even more ambitious.

• Meanwhile, Hitler’s anti-Semitism, or hatred of the Jews, became official government policy. He deprived Jews of their German citizenship and authorized the destruction of Jewish property.

• On Nov. 9, 1938, Nazi thugs burned down synagogues (Jewish houses of worship) and destroyed Jewish businesses.

• Known as Kristallnacht (“the night of the broken glass”), the violence provided a chilling preview of the still more-terrible fate that awaited European Jews and others who fell victims to Hitler’s murderous rule.

• Still, most Americans remained unwilling to intervene in Germany or to encourage Jewish immigration.

• Hitler and Mussolini were two powerful leaders who had dreams of expanding their borders, and were building armies mighty enough to seize new lands at will.

• When these two dictators formed an alliance in 1936, named the Axis Powers, fear struck the hearts of many Europeans, including the soviets whose communism clashed with fascism.

Stalin in the Stalin in the Soviet UnionSoviet Union

• In 1922, Joseph Stalin became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party under Vladimir Lenin.

• When Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, died in 1924, Stalin competed for control of the country.

• By 1929 he was in complete control of the Soviet Union.

• Stalin focused on creating a model communist state.

• Stalin launched his massive drive to make the Soviet Union a truly socialist country, which meant stamping out all private enterprise – especially private farming.

• He forced Russia’s peasants to give up their small plots of land to form large state-owned, or collective farms.

• They were expected to work on the farms as wage earners.

• Meanwhile, Stalin turned to his second great goal, the transformation of the Soviet Union from a backward rural nation into a great industrial power.

• By 1939, the Soviet Union had become the world’s third largest industrial power, surpassed in overall production by only the United States and Germany.

• To accomplish his ambitious goals, Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a vast police state -- a state in which no one was safe from the prying eyes and ears of Stalin’s spies and secret police

• Anyone even suspected of criticizing the Soviet leader or his goals was arrested and shipped off to a forced labor camp in the frozen wastelands of Siberia.

• In his drive to purge, or rid, the Soviet Union of people who disagreed with the government’s policies, Stalin did not even spare his most faithful supporters.

• During the Great Purge of the 1930s, tens of thousands of Communist Party officials, bureaucrats, and army officers were branded “enemies of the people” and were executed.

• While the final toll will never be known, historians estimate that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 20 million people. Millions more died in famines caused by the restructuring of Soviet society.

• The Communists controlled the Soviet Union from 1918-1991.

• Temporary partner with Germany at the beginning of WWII, the Soviet Union would eventually fight with the Allies against the Axis powers.

Militarists in Militarists in JapanJapan

• As German aggression threatened Europe, Japanese expansion loomed in Asia.

• Although Japan had moved toward democracy in the 1920s, the leaders of Japan’s military forces remained independent of the government.

• These military men wanted to lessen Japan’s reliance on foreign imports, to reduce the influence of Western countries in Asia, and to promote Japanese expansion throughout Asia.

• The creation of a Japanese empire in Asia would give Japan direct control over territories that produced rubber, petroleum, iron, and timber.

• Worsening conditions in Japan caused by the world-wide Depression strengthened the appeal of the militarists.

• Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria signaled its imperial ambitions.

• In 1934 and 1935, breaking their Washington Naval Conference pledges, the Japanese began a rapid naval buildup.

• On July 7, 1937, Japanese and Chinese troops clashed near Beijing (Peking). This incident soon developed into a full-scale war.

• Japan occupied northern China and launched devastating bombing raids against Chinese cities.

• Although the League of Nations and the U.S. condemned Japan’s actions, they failed to stop Japanese expansion

• Meanwhile, Japan’s war against China continued.

• The Japanese were also threatening to invade European colonies in Asia.

• FDR tried to warn Japan by cutting back trade with it.

• In Sept. 1940, Japan allied with the Axis powers (Germany and Italy). This relationship became known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.

• In July 1941, the Japanese military occupied French Indochina (Vietnam)

• FDR responded by “freezing” (holding) all Japanese investments and property in the United States.

• He also cut off oil shipments to Japan. Japan had no oil of its own. Without imported oil, Japan’s economy would collapse.

• The military leader who controlled the Japanese government at the time of WWII was General Hideki Tojo.

• Tojo’s title was first minister of the divine emperor of Japan – Emperor Hirohito.

• The Tojo government began to plan an attack on the Dutch East Indies (a source of oil), British Malaya, and the Philippine Islands.

• The Philippines were at that time still an American possession.

• Tojo knew that if Japan attacked the Philippines, the U.S. would declare war against Japan.

• To ensure victory, Japanese leaders decided to cripple the U.S. Navy in a giant, preemptive attack.

• They planned to destroy the huge navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Franco in Franco in SpainSpain

• In 1931 a parliamentary government under a democratic constitution replaced the Spanish monarchy.

• Led by Spanish army General Francisco Franco, conservative and pro-monarchy rebel troops attempted to overthrow the new Spanish government in 1936.

• The fighting that ensued became known as the Spanish Civil War, a war that quickly grew into an international struggle.

• Because Franco, like Mussolini, strongly opposed communism, Mussolini felt compelled to aid Franco’s cause. He sent airplanes and thousands of soldiers from the Italian Army. Hitler also sent Franco bombers and troops.

• On the other side, the Soviet Union supported the Republicans who fought for the elected government.

• Though the governments of Great Britain, France, and the United States were officially neutral, many citizens in these countries backed the Republicans.

• Some 3,000 Americans who opposed Franco’s political stance formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fought in Spain for the Republican cause. Many were far-left supporters of Stalin.

• Some of the Americans who volunteered feared that if Germany and Italy could come to the aid of Franco and overturn a democracy in Spain, France would be next.

• By 1939, Franco’s forces had prevailed in the Spanish Civil War and Spain became fascist.

• At the beginning of WWII, Spain was friendly toward the Axis powers, but later would lean toward the Allies.

• Franco’s official position was one of neutrality.

American American Isolation and Isolation and

NeutralityNeutrality

• The suffering the Great Depression caused convinced most people in the United States that their top priority lay at home, not overseas.

• The enormous cost of victory in WWI – both in money and in lives – convinced many that the nation should stay out of Europe’s troubles.

• They had fought to make the world safe for democracy, but questioned later whether their actions had made any difference at all.

• Many Americans wanted to follow a policy of isolationism.

• Many believed that the people who benefited most from WWI were the arms manufacturers, called by some critics the “Merchants of Death.”

• Keeping with public sentiment, FDR’s foreign policy concentrated at first on making the U.S. a “good neighbor” in the western hemisphere.

• At his inauguration in 1933, he announced the Good Neighbor Policy. This policy supported the idea of nonintervention among nations.

• FDR pledged that the U.S. would not interfere in the internal affairs of Latin American neighbors.

• Events in Italy and Germany, however, would soon make it impossible for the U.S. to avoid intervention in Europe.

• Congress responded to isolationist sentiment in the 1930s by passing a series of three Neutrality Laws.

• Taken together, these laws declared that the U.S. would withhold weapons and loans from all countries at war and would sell other goods to warring powers only if they paid cash and picked up the goods themselves, a policy known as “cash and carry.”

• By 1937 FDR had become convinced that the U.S. must resist aggression.

• In October, he gave what became known as the Quarantine Speech, in which he urged other countries to quarantine, or isolate, aggressor countries.

• Most Americans, however, were not yet ready to accept U.S. involvement in the quarantine.

• Even in early 1941, a Gallup poll revealed that 88 percent of the American people still opposed entering the war.

The European The European WarWar

Austria• One of Hitler’s goals was to bring

all the German speaking peoples in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland under his rule.

• He first turned his attention to Austria.

• When Hitler moved his army to the Austrian border, the Austrian president resigned rather than face Hitler’s massive modern army.

• In April 1938, Austria was officially incorporated into the German Reich.

• Hitler called this union of Germany and Austria Anschluss.

• Britain and France did nothing.

Czechoslovakia• Along the border with Germany, a section of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland was home to many Germans. Hitler insisted that these Germans should be in the German Empire.

• Worried that war was about to break out, Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of England, and Edouard Daladier, French premier, met with Hitler and Mussolini at Munich, Germany, in Sept. 1938.

• Chamberlain returned to cheering crowds in England waving a copy of the agreement and saying that there would be “peace in our time.”

• Promising that the Sudetenland was the only part of Czechoslovakia that he wanted, the British and French leaders had given into his demands.

• This represented a dangerous policy of appeasement (giving in to the demands of an aggressor).

• Hitler was not satisfied with just the Sudetenland. All of Czechoslovakia was taken by March 1939.

• Not all British politicians agreed with appeasement.

• Winston Churchill, who would soon replace Chamberlain as prime minister, remarked, “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. Those chose dishonor. They will have war.”

Hitler-Stalin Hitler-Stalin PactPact

• Even though they were political enemies, Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact on August 23, 1939, in which they agreed not to fight each other.

• They also agreed to divide Poland between them.

• Some historians believe that Stalin was trying to stall for time so that he could prepare his military to fight Hitler’s.

The German The German Offensive BeginsOffensive Begins

War in Poland and Finland• The Polish army was no match for the

combined air and ground forces of Germany that invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 (this marks the beginning of WWII).

• This blitzkrieg, or lightning war, enabled the Germans, with some help from the Soviets, to control Poland in less than a month.

• Britain and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3, but were unable to send troops to Poland.

• Stalin used this opportunity to expand the borders of the Soviet Union, seizing the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia with little effort.

• The Soviet Union then attacked Finland, which resisted for three months in a fierce winter.

• Stalin seemed to be trying to establish a buffer zone on land in case of the expected war with Germany.

Blitzkrieg in Western Europe

• Following the defeat of Poland, there was a period in the winter of 1939-40 of no fighting.

• Some referred to the situation as the “phony war.” Others called it the Sitzkrieg, or sit down war.

• The situation did not last long. In April 1940, Germany captured Denmark and Norway.

• By the end of May 1940, Holland and Belgium also fell under Hitler’s control.

• In England, Churchill replaced Chamberlain as prime minister as the English prepared to help France, which was expecting a German invasion.

• In May 1940, Churchill told the British people, “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the landing grounds; we shall fight in the fields and in the streets; we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

• Before the war, France had built the massive fortifications of the Maginot Line on its border with Germany.

• With the invasion of Belgium, however, Germany threatened to bypass the defenses.

• French and British troops were sent north into Belgium to stop the German advance.

• Hitler had anticipated this move and sent his tanks slicing through the Ardennes Forrest, a region of wooded ravines in northeast France that the Allies thought was impassable.

• The Germans then turned on the Allied troops, forcing them to retreat to the shores of the English Channel at Dunkirk in northern France.

• Using any type of ship that would float, the Allies were able to evacuate over 300,000 troops (became known as the “miracle at Dunkirk”).

• The Germans entered Paris on June 13, 1940. France had been defeated in 6 weeks.

• During WWII, France had 3 governments.

• 1)Germany occupied northern France and ran the government directly.

• 2)In the south of France, a puppet government was set up at Vichy.

• 3)Charles de Gaulle fled to England, where he set up a government-in-exile, called the Free French.

• From London, de Gaulle broadcast radio reports that encouraged the French underground to resist German control.

• These resistance fighters risked their lives to sabotage transportation and communication equipment needed by the Germans.

The Battle of The Battle of BritainBritain

• In the summer of 1940, Germany began Operation Sea Lion, the proposed invasion of England.

• First, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, would have to control the air routes over the English Channel.

• The Germans sent a steady stream of planes to hit targets in England.

• A series of nighttime attacks were known as the London Blitz.

• Churchill said to the English citizens, “I have nothing to offer [you] but blood, tears, and sweat.”

• In spite of fewer planes and pilots, the British air force, the Royal Air Force (RAF), managed to neutralize the Luftwaffe.

• The British also had radar to detect incoming planes.

• In addition, the British had broken the German code and knew the location of some of the planned targets.

• By the autumn of 1940, the Germans recognized that they could not win control of the air.

•Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion.

•Churchill in praise of the RAF said, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The HolocaustThe Holocaust

• The Holocaust was the systematic murder of over 11 million people across Europe. It has been estimated that about 6 million of these were Jews.

• When Germany first started persecuting the Jews, many started to flee Germany.

• The Nazis were in favor of this, but many nations were not willing to accept the Jewish refugees.

• Some refugees, including Albert Einstein, were allowed to come to the United States. Others were turned back.

• By 1939, the Nazis adopted the “final solution to the Jewish problem.” Jews and, in the words of the Nazis, other “subhumans” were sent to concentration camps, where the healthy ones were forced to work and the others were killed.

• This amounted to an attempt at genocide, the deliberate and systematic killing of an entire people.

• By 1941 the Nazis, led by the SS (Security Staff), the black-shirted private guard of Hitler, and the Gestapo, his secret police force, were sending thousands of the prisoners every day to gas chambers in six death camps in Poland, of which Auschwitz was the largest.

• As the decaying bodies in mass graves gave off a stench that could be smelled for miles and left evidence of their slaughter, the Nazis installed huge crematoriums, or ovens, in which to burn the dead.

• Various other experiments were conducted on prisoners as well.

United States’ United States’ DraftDraft

• Roosevelt asked Congress to increase spending for national defense.

• After years of isolation, the United States was militarily weak.

• Congress passed the nation’s first peacetime military draft in 1940.

• By the end of the war, 10 million men had been drafted and another 6 million men and women had enlisted voluntarily.

Election of Election of 19401940

•FDR was elected to a third term in 1940.

•He became the first and only United States President to break George Washington’s unwritten two-term precedent.

Aid From the Aid From the United StatesUnited States

• Roosevelt told the American people in a fireside chat that the U.S. “must become the great arsenal of democracy.”

• In January 1941, he gave his Four Freedoms speech, stating that the U.S. was fighting for freedom “of speech and religion, and freedom from want and fear.”

• In March 1941, the U.S. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, under which massive supplies of arms could be shipped to Britain on credit.

• In all, the United States eventually spent $50 billion under the act.

Battle of the Battle of the AtlanticAtlantic

• Because German U-boats, in swarms called wolf packs, were sinking ships loaded with war materials from the United States, the U.S. occupied Greenland with air and naval bases, which would provide protection for allied ships in the North Atlantic.

• This struggle for control of the North Atlantic shipping lanes is known as the Battle of the Atlantic.

Atlantic Atlantic CharterCharter

• In August 1941 Roosevelt and Churchill met on a yacht off the coast of Newfoundland. Churchill was hoping for a military commitment from the United States.

• Instead they agreed on why the allies were fighting the war (even before the U.S. eventually entered the war).

• The Atlantic Charter made the following statements of purpose:

The principles shared by Churchill and FDR become known as the Atlantic Charter and would serve as the basis for the creation of the United Nations following the war.

• 1) the Allies wanted no new territory

• 2) they wanted to guarantee the right of people to choose their own leaders

• 3) they wanted to guarantee free trade among people

• 4) they wanted to organize a system of international cooperation

• 5) they wanted some type of arms control

• FDR and Churchill’s shared principles that they outlined in the Atlantic Charter later served as the foundation for the establishment of the international organization we know today as the United Nations.

The The Undeclared Undeclared

WarWar

• In Sept. 1941, the United States destroyer Greer was attacked by a German U-boat off the coast of Iceland.

• Afterward, Roosevelt ordered the U.S. convoys to escort British ships across the Atlantic and to “shoot on sight” any German submarines spotted.

• In Oct. 1941, the Germans sank the U.S. destroyer Reuben James, killing over 100 sailors.

• The U.S. then engaged in an undeclared naval war with Germany.

• FDR knew that it would take something more dramatic than German attacks on U.S. ships would be needed to persuade Congress to declare war.

Attack on Pearl Attack on Pearl HarborHarbor

• United States experts had broken the Japanese code but were expecting an attack against either British or Dutch possessions in the Pacific.

• In spite of new radar equipment, Pearl Harbor was taken completely by surprise.

• The commanders at Pearl Harbor had taken precautions only against sabotage by Japanese secret agents in Hawaii.

• From 7:55 to 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese destroyed most of the U.S. Pacific fleet (the aircraft carriers were spared because they were out to sea).

• It was the worst defeat in U.S. history.• The Japanese hoped to handicap the

U.S. militarily. They wanted to conquer most of the Pacific territories before the U.S. could recover.

• After the news spread, the high numbers of Americans opposing American involvement disappeared. Most Americans enthusiastically supported war.

• President Roosevelt asked for a declaration of war on December 8, 1941.

• He referred to Dec. 7, 1941, as “a date which will live in infamy.”

• Immediately, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

• The U.S. was now faced with a war in Europe and in the Pacific.

• The plan of attack focused on trying to win in Europe first because Hitler was considered a greater threat than the Japanese.

• As a result, the American effort suffered in the Pacific during the first year of the war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozaPhOy7ilE

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMiXJuJkpTA

Pearl Harbor

Battle of the Atlantic

Ch. 25: The Ch. 25: The United States United States

in WWIIin WWII

Mobilization on the Home Front

• Of the some 15 million members of the armed services during WWII, about 2/3 were draftees and the rest volunteers, including more than 300,000 women.

• Women were incorporated into all branches of the armed services.

• Women did not serve in combat roles. They worked as nurses, did office work, and ferried planes in order to free men for active duty.

• While most women military personnel served on the home front, women in the Army Nurse Corps and the Navy Nurse Corps tended wounded soldiers overseas.

• At the beginning of WWII, fewer than 5,000 African Americans were in the armed services. Not more than a dozen were officers.

• In 1941, the Tuskegee Institute became a training base for African American flyers.

• The Tuskegee Airmen earned a good reputation because of their success in escorting all-white bomber crews over Europe during the war.

• The success of of African American units like the Tuskegee Airmen led more people to accept the idea of African Americans in the armed services.

• By the end of WWII, 1 million African American men and women had served. Six thousand of these were officers.

• Despite this massive improvement in opportunities for blacks in the military, they still faced discrimination.

• They served in segregated units in the army and were barred from serving in the Army Air Corps and the marines.

• Of the 4,000 African Americans in the navy in 1940, most were mess attendants.

• Other minority groups also enlisted. Nearly 350,000 Hispanic Americans served, suffering many of the same kinds of discrimination as African Americans.

• Hispanics were the most decorated of American ethnic groups, while the Japanese American 442nd Regiment was the most decorated unit.

• Japanese American soldiers fought loyally during the war in spite of the severe discrimination suffered by their families back home.

• Many Native Americans also joined the war effort. One group of Navajo became part of the Marine Signal Corps. These Navajo “code talkers” outwitted the Japanese by sending messages in a code based on the Navajo language.

War Effort at War Effort at HomeHome

• Private industry, directed by the government’s War Production Board, turned the U.S. into the “arsenal of democracy” that FDR had spoken of.

• Automobile factories made planes and tanks. Pencil-makers turned out bomb parts. Shipyards and defense plants expanded.

• The shipyards produced “liberty ships”needed to win the Battle of the Atlantic with amazing speed. A shipyard could build a warship in 6 weeks.

• Planes were produced at a rate of 10,000 per month.

• About 18 million workers kept these war industries going.

• Some 6 million new factory workers were women. Many former housewives worked in factories, shipyards, offices or wherever they were needed.

• Ads and a popular song promoted “Rosie the Riveter,” the symbol of patriotic women defense workers.

• The government hired scientists to develop new weapons and medicines.

• They made improvements in radar and sonar; and in “miracle drugs” like penicillin.

• On the advice of Albert Einstein, the government set up the Manhattan Project to research and develop the atomic bomb.

• Even Hollywood contributed to the war effort with patriotic films.

• They also made escapist romances and comedies that Americans flocked to to forget about the dangers faced by their loved ones overseas.

• As the public hunger for news of the war increased, magazines and radio became more popular.

Japanese Japanese InternmentInternment

• The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor created anger toward Japanese Americans, most of whom lived in California, Oregon, and Washington.

• In early 1942, FDR signed an order calling for Japanese Americans to be moved away from the Pacific Coast.

• 112,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up by the government and placed in internment camps far from the coast.

• They were essentially prisoners.

• About 2/3 of those interned were Nisei, or Japanese Americans who had been born in the United States and were thus American citizens.

• No one ever found evidence of disloyalty among Japanese Americans.

ShortagesShortages

• Since most resources were going to the armed services, Americans sometimes had to do without.

• For example, no automobiles were made between 1942 and 1945.

• Gasoline was also in short supply. This meant the end of Sunday drives and long car trips. Carpooling increased, and trains and buses were always crowded.

• To divide goods fairly, the government set up a system of rationing. Rationing means to give a fixed amount of something.

• Every family got ration books of stamps.

• Every time people bought such items as gasoline, tires, shoes, meat and sugar, they gave up a number of stamps.

• To help the war effort, people saved kitchen grease, scrap metal, and rubber. Grease could be used in making explosives. Scrap metal and rubber were reused by war industries.

• A common slogan of the day was: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!”

The Wartime The Wartime EconomyEconomy

• Defense jobs gave Americans the money to buy goods they had been unable to buy during the Depression.

• Yet because of the war, there were few goods to buy.

• The result was inflation (an increase in prices).

• The government started an Office of Price Administration (OPA) to hold down prices.

• The OPA set limits on prices for items in short supply.

• Since housing too was scarce, limits were also placed on rents.

• To help pay for the war, the government raised income taxes. It extended the tax to more people and started the payroll deduction plan.

• Under this plan, income taxes were deducted (taken out) from a person’s paycheck. This was easier for people than paying all their taxes at once each year.

• Another way the government paid for the war was by selling war bonds.

• The bonds were a kind of loan that the government promised to repay with interest.

• Movie stars traveled across the country to appear in war bond drives.

• These were huge rallies where the stars urged people to show their patriotism by buying bonds.

• Americans bought billions of dollars worth of bonds. It was a powerful expression of their support for the drive to victory.

Wartime Wartime PropagandaPropaganda

http://www.history.com/shows/wwii-in-hd/interactives/inside-wwii-interactive

The The European European TheaterTheater

• June 22June 22: Hitler invades the Soviet Union, blitzing into the Soviet Union and capturing many Russian prisoners. As the winter of 1941-42 begins, both armies are stalemated near Moscow.

•Dec. 11, 1941Dec. 11, 1941 - After the US declares war on Japan following Pearl Harbor, Italy and Germany declare war on the US.

• Jan. 26Jan. 26 - For the first time since the end of WWI, US troops arrive in Europe, landing in Northern Ireland.

• Aug. 22Aug. 22 - The Battle of Stalingrad begins. This courageous Russian stand costs hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.

• Nov. 25Nov. 25 - The 3-month siege of Stalingrad turns against the Germans, who are eventually surrounded. The Russian victory marks the end of the German offensive in Russia, and Germany begins its retreat from the Eastern Front.

• Feb. 14-25Feb. 14-25 (N. Africa) - Rommel, the Desert Fox, defeats US forces in Tunisia. US troops regroup under the new command of George S. Patton and stop Rommel’s drive. They link up with British forces and chase Rommel from Egypt.

• May 7May 7 - US and British forces force the surrender of all German and Italian troops in N. Africa.

• July 10July 10 - The Invasion of Sicily begins. Allied forces under the command of Dwight D. Eisenhower will capture the strategic island by August 17.

• July 19July 19 - Allies begin a massive bombing attack against Rome and surrounding areas.

• Sept.Sept. - Italy secretly surrenders to the Allies.

• Jan. 22Jan. 22 - The invasion of Anzio begins. The Allied forces hit this coastal town near Rome in an attempt to encircle German forces, but get pinned down on the beaches of “Bloody Anzio.”

• MarchMarch - 600 US bombers make their first raids on Berlin.

• May May - Americans trapped at Anzio break through and begin driving towards Rome, arriving on June 4.

• June 6June 6 - D-Day. The Allied invasion of Europe, code-named Operation Overlord, commences just after midnight. The largest invasion force in history, it includes 4,000 invasion ships, 600 warships, 10,000 planes, and 175,000 troops.

http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us/videos/playlists/exclusive-video#d-day-invasion

• JuneJune - On D-Day, the Allies were able to force the Germans backward despite heavy losses. Soon 1,000,000 Allied troops are in Europe.

• June 13June 13 - Germany launches the world’s first guided missile, the V-1, across the English Channel at London.

• July 20July 20 - Hitler escapes an assassination attempt and executes the conspirators.

• Aug. 25Aug. 25 - Paris is retaken by the Allies.• Sept. 12Sept. 12 - The second generation

German guided missile, or V-2, which is the first modern rocket, is launched across the Channel.

• Dec. 16Dec. 16 - The Battle of the Bulge begins. In the last major German counteroffensive, Allied troops are pushed back in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest. The Germans are eventually pushed back and forced to retreat.

• Feb.Feb. - Dresden, a city of little strategic value, is firebombed by US planes, killing more than 100,000 Germans.

• Feb. 4-11Feb. 4-11 - Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt meet at Yalta. They agree to create the United Nations after the war.

• March 7March 7 - US forces cross the Rhine River, and by the end of the month, all German forces have been pushed back into Germany.

• April 12April 12 - FDR dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. VP Harry S. Truman is sworn in as President.

• April 25April 25 - US troops halt at the Elbe River in Germany, where they meet Russian troops who had been advancing from the east.

• April 30April 30 - With Russian shells falling on Berlin, Hitler marries his mistress Eva Braun, poisons her, and shoots himself.

• May 7May 7 - The Germans formally surrender to General Eisenhower in France, and to the Soviet Union in Berlin. President Truman pronounces the following day VE Day, for victory in Europe.

The Pacific The Pacific TheaterTheater

• Dec. 7Dec. 7 - Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

• Dec. 17Dec. 17 - Admiral Chester Nimitz is given command of the Pacific Fleet.

• Dec. 23Dec. 23 - Japanese take Wake Island, a US possession in the North Pacific.

• Jan. 2Jan. 2 - Japan takes the Philippines as General Douglas MacArthur retreats to Corregidor in Manilla Bay.

• MarchMarch - MacArthur leaves the Philippines for Australia, vowing, “I shall return.”

• AprilApril - 75,000 US and Filipino troops surrender to overwhelming Japanese forces. It is the largest US surrender in history. The captives are marched over 100 miles in the infamous “Bataan Death March,” during which thousands of prisoners are executed or die of starvation or thirst before they reach the Japanese prison camps.

• April 18April 18 - Led by Major General James Doolittle, US bombers raid Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

• May 4-8May 4-8 - The Battle of the Coral Sea. Off the coast of New Guinea, US Navy planes severely damage a Japanese fleet, forestalling a Japanese invasion of Australia. Ships do not engage each other in battle; all fighting is carried out by carrier-launched planes.

• June 3-6June 3-6 - The Battle of Midway. The US Navy wins another crucial battle in the Pacific war. The Japanese naval advantage is eliminated. At this point in the war, Japan controls an enormous amount of territory representing 10% of the Earth’s surface.

• Aug. 7Aug. 7 - In the first US offensive of the war, marines land on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. It is the beginning of an offensive aimed at dislodging the Japanese from islands that will provide stepping-stones for an eventual invasion of Japan. This is known as the island-hopping strategy.

• Nov. 12-15Nov. 12-15 - In the naval battle of Guadalcanal, the US fleet under Admiral William Halsey destroys a Japanese fleet, sinking 28 warships and transports rendering the Japanese unable to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal.

•Nov. 20Nov. 20 - The Battle of Tarawa. US forces take the tiny island of Tarawa and the airstrip located on that island.

• Jan. 31Jan. 31 - After taking control of the airstrip at Tarawa, the US amphibious invasion force under Admiral Nimitz continues its step-by-step sweep into the North Pacific with an invasion of the Marshall Islands.

• Feb. 9Feb. 9 - US Marines take control of Guadalcanal after months of savage combat in which they have been cut off from supplies and were reduced to eating roots.

•JuneJune - US troops begin an offensive on the Marianas -- Saipan, Guam, and Tinian, all of which are secured at high costs.

• Oct. 20Oct. 20 - General MacArthur wades ashore at Leyte Island in the Philippines, fulfilling his promise to return. Three days later, the Battle of Leyte Gulf results in a major Japanese naval defeat.The Japanese now begin to resort to the infamous kamikaze attacks, which will result in the loss of some 400 ships and nearly 10,000 American seamen.

•FebFeb. - A month-long siege in the Philippines ends with US troops retaking Manila.

• MarchMarch - Iwo Jima. A month-long struggle for this rocky, 8-square-mile volcanic island comes to an end. The famous image of six marines -- 3 of whom never make it off the island -- raising the flag atop Mt. Suribachi becomes an American icon of the day.

• April 1April 1 - US troops invade Okinawa on Easter Sunday. The fight will last 3 months and become the bloodiest battle of the Pacific, costing the US 80,000 casualties.

• June 21June 21 - Okinawa falls. The Japanese have lost 160,000 soldiers attempting to defend the island.

• July 16July 16 - (Home front) The first atomic bomb is successfully detonated in a secret test at Alamagordo, New Mexico, the fruits of the top-secret Manhattan Project begun in 1943 by FDR and continued under Truman. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist of the project, states privately that “The world is forever changed.”

http://www.history.com/shows/wwii-in-hd/interactives/inside-wwii-interactive

http://www.history.com/shows/america-the-story-of-us/videos/playlists/exclusive-video#manhattan-project

• Aug. 6Aug. 6 - The US B-29 Enola Gay drops the atomic bomb on the Japanese industrial city of Hiroshima. The destructive capacity of this now-primitive weapon levels the city, killing 80,000 immediately, seriously injuring another 100,000, and leveling 98% of the city’s buildings.

• Aug. 9Aug. 9 - A second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, with similar results. Stalin declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria.

• Aug. 14Aug. 14 - Fighting ends in the Far East. Three days later the Allies divide Korea along the 38th parallel, with Soviet troops occupying the north and US troops occupying the south.

• Sept. 2Sept. 2 - General MacArthur, named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan, accepts the formal, unconditional surrender of Japan aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. MacArthur heads an occupation government designed at rebuilding and democratizing Japan.

The Price of WarThe Price of War• Casualties: 7.5 million Russian, 3.5 million Germans, 1.2 million Japanese, 2.2 million Chinese.

• US casualties: 300,000 dead, 700,000 wounded.