World War II: At Home & Abroad

Rise of Aggression in Europe and Asia 1930s = Authoritarian governments in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Greece 1922 – 1943 = Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy Nationalist Socialist Party (Nazis) gained power in Germany in late 1920s 1933 = Hitler became Chancellor of Germany Nazis targeted Jews, homosexuals, communists, & disabled as “inferior races”

Appeasement Practiced by Great Britain & France 1938 = Hitler demanded Germany’s right to Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia Britain’s Chamberlain gave in to Hitler

Japan Interested in expansion 1937 = Declared war against China

Neutrality Acts, Outlawed the sale of weapons & loans to nations at war Forbade Americans from traveling on ships of warring countries

August 1939 = Hitler & Stalin formed German-Soviet pact Soviet Union & Germany promised not to fight & to divide Poland after it was invaded by Germany Britain & France promised to defend Poland September 1, 1939 = Hitler invaded Poland September 3, 1939 = Britain & France declared war on Germany

Cash & Carry Plan, 1939 Neutrality Acts amended for U.S. to sell weapons to countries at war Required they pay cash & carry weapons on their own ships Allowed the U.S. to profit from the war

Pearl Harbor Japan wanted empire to include China, southeast Asia, western Pacific September 1940 = Japan, Germany, Italy signed “Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis” military alliance Japan warned attack in December 1941

Sunday, December 7, 1941 = Japanese planes attacked navy base on Oahu, Hawaii 2,400 Americans killed, 1,200 wounded December 8, 1941 = U.S. declared war against Japan 3 days later = Germany & Italy declared war against U.S.

The Battlefront in Europe Approach of Allies = Attack Germany first, Japan second

War in the Pacific Philippines, Australia, China, Indonesia, Thailand, plus smaller South Pacific Islands General Douglas MacArthur’s “Island Hopping”

Jewish Migration? By 1939 = 300,000 Jews fled Germany, 200,000 fled Austria June 1939 = 900 Jewish refugees arrived on St. Louis ship in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida & sent back to Germany 700 of the 900 died in concentration camps

Victory in Europe April 12, 1945 = FDR died April 30, 1945 = Hitler committed suicide May 2, 1945 = Berlin captured by the Soviet Union May 8, 1945 = Germany surrendered, “V-E Day”

WWII at Home

Mobilizing for War Pearl Harbor, December 1941 = 1.6 million in Army War Power Act granted FDR authority over war mobilization 15 million men, 350,000 women served in military Economy, government, military coordinated

War Production Board = distributed defense contracts War Manpower Commission = supervised mobilization of soldiers Office of Price Administration rationed food End of 1942 = 1/3 of economy devoted to war production 300,000 aircraft, 2.6 million machine guns, 6 million tons of bombs, 86,000 warships

Defense Spending Ends Great Depression U.S. spent $320 billion total to defeat the Axis 17 million new jobs created Brought prosperity to many American workers

Rationing

O.P.A. rationed gas, coffee, sugar, butter, cheese, meat “Uncle Sam’s Scrappers” & “Tin Can Colonels” collected scrap metal and trash

War Bonds

Propaganda & Politics Office of Censorship suppressed war footage & casualty numbers Office of War Information hired 4,000 advertisers, writers, artists to create unity through propaganda

Rosie the Riveter Federal government urged women to work in 1942 Over 6 million women worked in war production 1945 = 1/3 of workforce were women 75% married, 60% over 35, 33% had kids under 14

Hostility Towards Rosie Women earned 35% less pay than men Government portrayed their work as temporary “A woman is a substitute like plastic instead of metal” 1945 poll = Only 18% approved of married women working

Japanese Internment Issei: First generation Japanese Immigrants (37,000 interned) Nisei: U.S.-born Japanese Americans (75,000 interned) FDR’s Executive Order 9006 = February 1942, all Japanese on West Coast forcibly removed from homes

Star Trek’s George Takei Reflecting on Life in an Internment Camp

$2 billion lost in property & belongings Supreme Court upheld constitutionality of internment policy, Korematsu v. U.S. (1942) 1982 = U.S. government admitted internment “not based on military necessity” & $20,000 given to 62,000 survivors in 1988

The Atomic Bombs 1939 = Einstein warned U.S. about German development of A-bomb Manhattan Project began in 1941 between U.S. and Britain 2 bombs completed in Los Alamos, NM July = test bomb exploded in Alamogordo, NM

U.S. threatened to drop bomb if Japan did not surrender by August 3, 1945 August 6, 1945 = Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over Hiroshima

August 8, 1945 = Bock’s Car dropped “Fat Man” over Nagasaki September 6, 1945 = Japan surrendered

Hiroshima = 60,000 died immediately, 75,000 later from radiation and burns Nagasaki = 30,000 died immediately