World War II: The Front Lines

• Before the war• The war in Europe• Attitudes toward the war in the US

• US enters the war• Pearl Harbor• Government wartime propaganda

• The front lines• The Pacific• Europe

• End of War• Liberating consentration camps• US and the Soviet Union

Before the War > Events leading up to the attack & H.V. Kaltenborn on Hitler’s speech, 1938• 1922 Benito Mussolini comes to power in Italy• September 1931 Japan occupies Manchuria• March 1933 Adolf Hitler seizes power• May 1933 Japan quits League of Nations• 1936 Spanish Civil War against Franco• August 1937 Japan invades China• October 1937 FDR calls for international cooperation against aggression• March 1938 Germany annexes Austria• September 1938 Munich agreement lets Germany annex Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia• November 1938 Kristallnacht, Nazis attack Jews and destroy Jewish property• March 1939 Germany annexes remainder of Czechoslovaka• August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union sign nonagression pact• September 1939 Germany invades Poland; World War II begins•April-June 1940 Bliztkrieg (Germany conquers much of Western Europe)• September 1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan (the Axis powers) conclude a military alliance• September 1940 First peacetime draft in American history• November 1940 FDR elected for a third term• March 1941 Lend-Lease Act extends aid to Great Britain• May 1941 Germans secure the Balkans• June 1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union• August 1941 The United States and Great Britain agree to the Atlantic Charter• December 1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor

Before the War > War of the Worlds broadcast, October 30, 1938

Before the War > Antiwar labor pamphlet

Before the War > North American Aviation advertisement, Collier’s, 1942

Before the War > Omaha high school student’s fascist sticker, 1938

Pearl Harbor > US Ships during Pearl Harbor attack, 1941

Pearl Harbor > Live KTU broadcast from Hawaii during the attack

Reporter: Hello, NBC. Hello, NBC. This is KTU in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am speaking from the roof of the Advertiser Publishing Company Building. We have witnessed this morning the distant view a brief full battle of Pearl Harbor and the severe bombing of Pearl Harbor by enemy planes, undoubtedly Japanese. The city of Honolulu has also been attacked and considerable damage done. This battle has been going on for nearly three hours. One of the bombs dropped within fifty feet of KTU tower. It is no joke. It is a real war. The public of Honolulu has been advised to keep in their homes and away from the Army and Navy. There has been serious fighting going on in the air and in the sea. The heavy shooting seems to be . . . a little interruption. We cannot estimate just how much damage has been done, but it has been a very severe attack. The Navy and Army appear now to have the air and the sea under control.

Operator: Ah, just a minute. . . . This is the telephone company. This is the operator.

Reporter: Yes.

Operator: We have quite a big call, an emergency call.

Reporter: We’re talking to New York now.

Propaganda > Anti-Nazi poster, 1942

Propaganda > Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo on Collier’s cover, 1942

Propaganda > OWI short Justice, 1945

Propaganda > Frank Capra, The Negro Soldier, 1942

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Pearl Harbor > Pearl Harbor hero Doris (“Dorie”) Miller poster

Propaganda > Betty Grable

Propaganda > Lena Horne, the most popular pinup among black soldiers

Propaganda > Betty Grable and Her Bombardiers in All-Star Bond Rally

Front Lines > Some key events of World War II

• December 1941 - Pearl Harbor• February 1942 - Executive Order mandates internment of Japanese Americans• May-June 1942 - US wins naval superiority in the Pacific• November 1942 - US lands in North Africa• January 1943 - Casablanca Conference announces unconditional surrender policy• February 1943 - Soviet victory over Germans in Stalingrad• May 1943 - German troops surrender in Africa• July 1943 - Allied invasion of Italy• June-August 1944 - US lands in Normandy; liberates Paris• November 1944 - FDR is elected to fourth term• February 1945 - Yalta conference renews US-Soviet alliance• February-June 1945 - US captures Iwo Jima and Okinawa• April 1945 - FDR dies; Harry Truman becomes president• May 1945 - Germany surrenders• August 1945 - US drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders

Front Lines > War in Europe

Front Lines > Wartime broadcasts of Edward Murrow and others from London: Trafalgar Square, Rooftop air raid report, and US bombing run

Front Lines > Cartoon from Yank: The Army Weekly, 1943

Front Lines > Ben Hurwitz, inside a troop ship, 1943

Front Lines > An African American GI escorts captured German soldiers

Front Lines > War in the Pacific

Front Lines > War in the Pacific from the soldiers’ point of view

Yoshida Kashichi, Guadalcanal, 1942No matter how far we walkWe don’t know where we’re goingTrudging along under dark jungle growthWhen will this march end?Hide during the dayMove at nightDeep in the lush Guadalcanal jungleOur rice is goneEating roots and grassAlong the ridges and cliffsLeaves hide the trail, we lose our wayStumble and get up, fall and get upCovered with mud from our fallsBlood oozes from our woundsNo cloth to bind our cutsFlies swarm to the scabsNo strength to brush them awayFall down and cannot move

How many times I’ve thought of suicide.

U.S. Marine, Guam, 1944This foxhole is about two feet deep. Now, I would like to be able to speak louder and with more clarity, but unfortunately, the slightest noise, the slightest rustle, will draw fire not only from the Japanese, who are someplace, perhaps, in the dense foliage around us or up on the ridge, but from our own Marines who are huddled nearby in foxholes like this one. I don’t know how they [the Japanese] do it. We can lie here absolutely breathless listening to the slightest sounds and not see anything—in fact, not hear anything—and then we wake up and find that they’re all around us. And it’s a very tough and tedious job to root them out, [inaudible] them and exterminate them. We lost quite a few people in our unit. A very popular captain was killed.

Front Lines > American soldier killed by mortar fire, 1944

Front Lines > Bill Maudlin, “Up Front,” Stars and Stripes, 1945

“Fresh, spirited American troops, flushed with victory, are bringing in thousands of hungry, ragged, battle-weary prisoners.”

End of War > Bodies of victims in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp

End of War > Six-year-old orphan wearing a Buchenwald badge

End of War > American and Russian Troops, 1945