THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1877-1945

LECTURE 10U.S. AND WORLD WAR TWO

AFTER PEARL HARBOR

• Losses in the Pacific (Wake Island, Gilbert Islands, Japan takes Burma, Hong Kong, Singapore, Java)

• 1942: loss of the Philippines, defeat at Corregidor

• Death march of Bataan• Japanese push into the South Pacific

BATAAN DEATH MARCH

• A Japanese war crime• 75,000 American and Filippino soldiers forced

on a 97 km march• One week march in tropical heat• Physical abuse: beating, starvation, murder,

surrendering soldiers seen as coward• War criminals: Masaru Homma, (1945) Hideki

Tojo (1958) were executed

BATAAN DEATH MARCH

TURNING POINT AT THE PACIFIC

• 1942: Battle of the Coral Sea-saving Australia• 1942: Battle at Midway• Admiral Nimitz v. Admiral Yamamoto• Greatest naval battle fought without ships• (bombers, carriers)

BATTLE AT MIDWAY

MOBILIZATION AT HOME

• German submarine warfare in the Atlantic• Government orders military production• Extending military service to age 18-45• 15 million people drafted• Churchill: Once the fire is lit under the boiler

there is no limit to the power it can generate

ECONOMIC CONVERSION AND MOBILIZATION

• War Production Board• Office of Scientific Research and Development

(radar, sonar)• War bonds• Full employment

ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION

• Federal government takes an active role in the economy

• Guarantees loans, provides subsidies, eliminates bidding

• Automobile industry converted to wartime production

• 100,000 planes are produced by the end of the war

ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION

• Office of Price Administration• Established in 1942• Freezes prices, controls rents, institutes

rationing• Promoting self-sacrifice: use it up, wear it out,

make it do, or do without!

EFFECT ON SOCIETY

• Women: employment in previously male dominated jobs

• Rosie the riveter, 6 million women enter the labor force

• Women Army Corps WACS• Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency

Service WAVES• Do your part, free a man for service!• Older,married women in the workforce

ROSIE THE RIVETER

EFFECTS ON SOCIETY

• Blacks:• 1941: March on Washington (NAACP, Brotherhood of

the Sleeping Car Porters) led by A Phillip Randolph• I million serve in the armed forces and defense

industry• Segregated units, but start of desegregation efforts• Govt. reinforces Fair Employment Practices• Forbidding discrimination in defense work and training

programs• 1943: Detroit Race Riots

EFFECTS ON SOCIETY

• Japanese: Immigration Act of 1924 bars their immigration

• 1941: 260,000 Japanese, 150,000 live in Hawaii (small farmers, business people)

• After Pearl Harbor, fear of Japanese invasion• Governor of Idaho: The Japs live like rats, breed

like rats and act like rats. We don't want them."• 10 relocation camps, resembling minimum

security prisons

EFFECTS ON SOCIETY

• Japanese:• War Relocation Camps both for Isei, Nisei• Executive order by FDR authorizing

relocations• Manzanar, Topaz, • Japanese seen as security risks• Fears are unfounded

EFFECTS ON SOCIETY

• Japanese:• 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd

Regimental Combat Team containing Japanese soldiers fight bravely on the Italian Front.

• Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of internment: Korematsu v. U.S. (1944)

• Ex parte Endo: Court declares the War Relocation Authority acted unconstitutionally in detaining a citizen loyal to the U.S.

EFFECTS ON SOCIETY

• Mexican-Americans• 1943 Zoot Suit Riot• Clash between young Mexicans and American

sailors in Los Angeles • Bracero program 1942-1945

ZOOT SUITERS

THE HOME FRONT• Women as managers of the home, main task:

rationing and dealing with shortage of domestic resources

• Carry groceries instead of driving, plant victory gardens

• Who was Rosie the Riveter? • Not a promoter of change in society, but the

representation of the ideal female worker• All day long whether rain or shine, she is part of

the assembly line, she is making history working for victory

WARTIME PROPAGANDA

• Women do their part for the war• Patriotic duty• High earnings• Glamour of work• Same as housework• Spousal pride

DOMESTIC CONSERVATISM

• Dissatisfaction with New Deal• Republican resurgence American Liberty

League• Charles Lindbergh speaks up against U.S.

involvement in the War, June 20th 1941• Rolling back labor legislation• Criticism of working women• Children left alone, increased youth crime

TURNING POINT IN EUROPE

• 1941: Germany attacks the Soviet Union• 1942: Defeat of Afrika Korps at El Alamein• 1943: Stalingrad• 1944 June 6 D-Day• 1945 May 8 V-E Day

D-DAY

• probably the most carefully planned and executed military operation in history

• combined amphibious and aerial assault across the English Channel

• Importance of meteorologic information• Moon’s influence on tides • Invasion starts at 6.30 AM• Decision day, disembarkation day, H hour, D day

D-DAY

• 150,000 men, 30,000 vessels• 13,000 parachuters, 300 planes dropping 13 000

bombs• George Hicks: radio broadcast: You see the ships

lying in all directions, just like black shadows on the grey sky. . . Now planes are going overhead... Heavy fire now just behind us... bombs bursting on the shore and along in the convoys.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnomrhP6sVs

THE PACIFIC OFFENSIVE

• Island hopping• Three directional Allied offensive• From Australia to Japan, from Hawaii to the

Central Pacific, a push to Burma, to free Southeast Asia

• Capturing islands that are strategically important, bypassing others

IVO JIMA

• Sulphur Islands, needed as an emergency landing strip for B-29s, preparing for the invasion of Japan

• 36 day battle , • 5th Marine Division 28th Marines 110 000 men• Attack on Mount Suribachi• throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete. • 1945, February: flag raising• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnomrhP6sVs

IVO JIMA

IVO JIMA

• ”Among the Americans serving on Iwo island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."(Adm. Chester A. Nimitz)

• "Holland, the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."(Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, after witnessing the flag raising on 23Feb45)

• Storm'd at with shot and shell Bravely they rode and well Into the Jaws of Death Into the Mouth of Hell

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

• July 16, 1945 Alamogordo test explosion• 428 000 acre industrial complex in New

Mexico• It (the explosion) rose from the desert like a

second sun, a searing, brilliant, expanding ball of fire, and it struck terror in everyone who witnessed it. Stephen Walker

CLOSING THE WAR

• 1945 August 6: Hiroshima• 1945 august 9: Nagasaki• President Truman ordered the dropping of the

A-bomb• September 2, 1945 Japan surrenders• World War Two is over

• https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KLqIWHzWlUcG8AkIn7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTB2bWFrcG9nBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDVjE3NQRncG9zAzI-?p=surrender+of+japan+youtube&vid=2ac622e7f02d55e0382e1eba5b927aac&l=2%3A21&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DVN.608002391198533882%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAsZ0qwJSbuQ&tit=%3Cb%3ESurrender+of+Japan+%3C%2Fb%3Eto+the+Allied+forces+aboard+the+USS+Missouri%2C+victims+%3Cb%3Eof+Japan%3C%2Fb%3E...HD+Stock+Footage&c=1&sigr=11a72mjme&sigt=13ifmksuc&age=0&&tt=b

NUCLEAR DAWN

HIROSHIMA

VJ day• https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/

play;_ylt=A0LEV0_UzmlUCMIAhdNXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0Z2JmZ2NuBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDU1MV8x?p=vj+day+kiss+youtube&tnr=21&vid=2C3288C7797981591B522C3288C7797981591B52&l=176&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608039903428676058%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmPHRp0us9X4&sigr=11adebprp&tt=b&tit=1945+The+VJ+Day+Kiss&sigt=10k44e5dh&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dvj%2Bday%2Bkiss%2Byoutube%26fr%3Dmoz2-ytff-yff30%26ei%3DUTF-8&sigb=12hp8o75i

LEGACY OF WORLD WAR TWO

• 400,000 deaths• Military, economic, political superpower• Formation of the military-industrial complex• Vast social changes, increasing economic role

for women• Foreign policy will be built on the expectation

of war• Beginning of the Cold War