Real Change: WWII and its Effects at Home and Abroad

I can analyze the U.S. involvement in World War II and the war’s influence on international affairs in the decades that followed; I will examine the reason why the U.S. remained neutral at the beginning of WWII, but later became involved; I can describe and analyze the effects of the war on American economic, social, political, and cultural life, especially as relates to the Civil Rights Movement

“From Isolationism to Total War”: 1920-1945

Isolationism: Foreign Policy that says that the U.S. should not get involved in issues overseas even if asked to intervene.

The term is used to describe the Harding and Coolidge administrations (because the U.S. refused to join the League of Nations) but it overstates America’s lack of involvement.

Isolationism is an accurate description for the policy that many Americans wanted to pursue in the late 1930s.

Axis Powers: Alliance set in a 1937 Protocol, between three dictators: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito. The three agreed to fight the Soviets, but ended up going to war with both the Soviets and the West.

Germany (Hitler) Nazism: “National Socialism” advocates extreme nationalism, militarism, and control of industry by the State under dictatorship, believes in superiority of “Aryan race”Italy (Mussolini) Fascism: Advocates extreme nationalism and socialism under dictatorship, a militarist police state, named for the fasces—Roman symbol of authorityJapan (Hirohito) Militarism: Advocates extreme nationalism, values military virtues, selflessness, and dedication to the emperor (who is viewed as a god)Soviet Union (Stalin) Communism: “Command Economy” entirely controlled by the State, no private property, one-party regime dictated by premier and close advisors, does not tolerate dissent

Appeasement: Allowing aggressors to get away with aggression because you fear greater problems, such as war.

As Hitler defied the Versailles Treaty, the English and French gave in to his demands.

British Prime Minister Chamberlain epitomized appeasement at Munich (September 1938) when he accepted Hitler’s word that the Nazis would not invade Czechoslovakia, declaring they had achieved “peace in our time.”

Offered in FDR’s 1941 State of the Union Speech, they represent what the U.S. was fighting for in WWII. The freedoms are: (1) freedom of speech, (2) freedom of conscience or religion, (3) freedom from want, (4) freedom from fear.

Four Freedoms:

Japanese Aggression in East Asia

Attack on Pearl Harbor: On December 7, 1941, the “Day of Infamy” as FDR put it, the Japanese attacked the U.S. Naval Base and Air Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and drew the U.S. into the war.

The “surprise attack,” killed 2,400 U.S. military personnel, destroyed scores of aircraft, and sank several U.S. battleships, but was, in truth, a strategic and tactical defeat for the Japanese because as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto noted, “We have woken a sleeping giant.”

Mobilization and Propaganda:

Rationing: So civilians could contribute to the war effort and to conserve necessary materials for soldiers, U.S. restricted food and fuel purchases.

To conserve gasoline and rubber, unnecessary travel was not permitted and speed limits were set at 35 miles per hour.

Children contributed by holding “scrap drives,” going door to door, collecting tin cans, used pots and pans, old tires, etc.

Doing Our Part: Victory Gardens

Remember Pearl Harbor

Rosie the Riveter: A character from a popular song, she worked in an airplane factory. She represents the role many women played in war production by joining the workforce in traditionally male jobs while the men fought overseas.

Tuskegee Airmen: Segregated African-American Army Air Corps unit during WWII. Nearly 1000 black military aviators trained at an isolated complex near Tuskegee, Alabama and at Tuskegee Institute. 450 fighter pilots under the command of Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., fought in the aerial war over North Africa, Sicily and Europe

After the U.S. entered WWII, Eisenhower led U.S. troops in the North African campaign and was named Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in 1943. He led all Allied troops in the invasion of Normandy. After the war, he was elected POTUS in 1952.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

D-Day (June 6, 1944): Operation Overlord was the Allied invasion of Normandy in France to open a second front to relieve pressure on the Soviets. Within eleven months, the Soviets took Berlin and the other allies took the western and southern parts of the Reich.

At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, a divided Democratic Party renominated FDR for a fourth term despite his failing health. To satisfy conservatives and southerners in the party, FDR named Truman as his running-mate.

In April 1945, FDR died. Truman became POTUS unaware of the country’s biggest issues, notably the atomic bomb.

Harry S Truman

V-E Day (May 8, 1945): Day of the German surrender and end of the war in Europe. Hitler had committed suicide along with several other Nazi leaders. V stands for victory.

Hitler’s “Final Solution” for victory: the planned and systematic murder of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others in death camps, such as Auschwitz. .

The Holocaust led to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in which many Nazis were convicted and executed. It led to the creation of a Jewish state, Israel. It had a profound effect on U.S. racial and ethnic relations, providing an impetus for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s.

The Holocaust:

War Against Japan

Internment of Japanese Americans

After Pearl Harbor, the Justice Department began rounding up Japanese nationals in the U.S. as “enemy aliens.” Concern grew about spying and sabotage on the West Coast. In February 1942, FDR ordered the military forcibly to remove Japanese resident aliens and U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage (Nisei) to “War Relocation Camps,” or internment camps in Arizona and Colorado. The relocation was accompanied by seizure of property; so many lost their homes.

Several Nisei sued. In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled internment legal because of the war emergency.

Battle of Midway, (June 1942): Turning point of the war in the Pacific: an important strategic victory for the U.S. and caused the Japanese to retreat; the Japanese would never be as strong again. It also was an important tactical victory, showing the importance of aircraft carriers in the new warfare.

General Douglas MacArthur:

With Eisenhower, Pershing, and Patton, one of the greatest U.S. military commanders of the twentieth century and considered the best general in WWII.

He was Commander in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. When the Japanese forced the U.S. withdrawal of those islands, he declared, “I shall return.”He was Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific, retaking the Philippines in the Battle of Leyte Gulf (where the Japanese first used kamikaze). After Japan surrendered, he became military commander of occupied Japan, reshaping Japanese society through a new constitution and a peace-oriented economy.

“island-hopping” (“leapfrogging”): Tactic of taking Pacific islands and building air strips on them, getting closer to Japan so that they could bomb Tokyo and other cities. The campaign was the toughest fighting the U.S. saw during the war, each new assault being bloodier than the last.

The bloody battles caused some military commanders to believe that it would take an invasion of perhaps 1,000,000 troops to defeat Japan.

Manhattan Project: top-secret plan to develop an atomic bomb, culminating in July 1945 when the U.S. successfully tested the bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Truman insisted that the bomb be used only on a military target rather than on women and children.

On August 6th, 1945, a B-29, the Enola Gay, dropped “the bomb” on Hiroshima. When the Japanese still did not surrender, the U.S. dropped a second bomb, on Nagasaki, three days later.

The bombs killed more than 200,000 civilians and caused the Japanese finally to surrender. The U.S. celebrated the end of the war as V-J Day.

Col. Thomas FerebeeBombardier

V-J Day, August 15, 1945