World War Two

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World War Two

• Ways America Prepared for War

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Selective Service Act

• Summer of 1940
• First peacetime draft
• Men between 21 -- 35
• Registered 16.5 million men
• 5 million volunteered

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Women in the Armed Services

• 250,000 women enlisted
• First time women were permitted to volunteer for
  armed forces
• Non-combat roles (accountants, bookkeepers,
  drivers, radio operators)
• Served in all branches
• WACS (womens armed corp services)
• WAVES (women in the navy)
• WAFS (women in the air force)

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WAFS
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Women in WW2

• Very strict guidelines for women to serve in the
  military
• Age 20-49
• No children under age 14
• Minimum of two years of high school

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Women in the work force

• Five million women entered the workforce
• Many worked in industrial jobs in shipyards,
  defense plants, etc.
• Received 60 less pay than men

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Rosie The Riveter
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African Americans in WW2

• 1.5 million AA left the south for jobs in the
  north and west
• 1 million left home to serve in the armed forces
  (segregated units)
• Both civilians and soldiers continued to face
  discrimination and segregation
• Civil Rights leaders under the NAACP encouraged
  AA to adopt the Double V slogan

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Double V Campaign

• V victory over fascism abroad
• V victory for equality at home
• New Civil Rights organization created in 1942 to
  work more militantly for AA rights. Named CORE
  Congress of Racial Equality

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Industrial Production

• 1942 War Production Board (WPB) established to
  convert companies from peacetime to wartime
  production.
• U.S. industries booming.
• By 1944 unemployment practically gone
• Kaiser shipyard in California could make a new
  ship in 14 days

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Office of Price Administration

• OPA regulated almost every aspect of civilian
  life. Controlled Inflation. Froze prices,
  wages, rent, etc.
• Set up a rationing system. Used coupon booklets.
  Meat, sugar, coffee, gasoline, rubber

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Financing the War

• WW2 cost the U.S. 320 Billion (10xs more than
  WW1)
• Raised the money through income taxes (first time
  automatically deducted from paychecks)
• Selling war bonds (raised 135 Billion)
• 1945 National Debt 250 Billion

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Propaganda Poster
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Organizing Science

• 1939 Albert Einstein wrote FDR a personal letter.
• 1941 Office of Scientific Research established
  to research and develop the atomic bomb
• Team of American, British, European scientists
  headed by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Three plants set up to produce uranium and
  plutonium

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The Atomic Bomb
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Changes in Entertainment

• Hollywood began making war-time propaganda films.
• 60 million to 100 million moviegoers a week
• Prelude To War one of the greatest propaganda
  films ever made. Frank Capra series Why We
  Fight
• Musicals, romances, comedies

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Walt Disneys contributions

• Transformed his cartoon studio into a moviemaking
  factory for Uncle Sam.
• Made educational, training, fund-raising, and
  morale-building films.
• Used the Seven Dwarfs to sell war bonds
• Donald Duck to inspire Americans to pay their
  taxes on time

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Walt Disney Wartime Propaganda
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Japanese American Internment Camps

• What does internment mean?
• What is an Executive Order? (9066)
• What motivated FDR to issue the order?
• National security
• Military necessity
• Wartime hysteria

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Internment Camps

• 110,000-120,000 interned
• 10 camps
• California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona
• Issei Japanese born (first generation)
• Nisei Children of Issei (second generation)
• http//www.asianamericanmedia.org/jainternment/cam
  ps/questions.html

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European Front

• Dwight Eisenhower
• Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
• Defeat Germany 1st
• Operation Torch (invasion of North Africa)
• Italian campaign

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Mussolinis Death
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D-Day (June 6, 1944)

• Objective Free France from Germany
• 2 years planning
• U.S., British, Canadian troops landed along 60
  mile stretch of beach (Normandy)
• Largest amphibious attack (3 million troops)
• Five landings Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword
  beaches

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D-Day

• D-Day deception at Calais
• Phantom landing force
• Inflatable tanks, dummy landing crafts
• Fooled Germans temporarily to allow landing at
  Normandy

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American Experience website

• Origins of D-Day
• Paratroopers
• Letters sent home describing the landing
• http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dday/

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Germany Defeated

• Last German offensive to stop Allies from
  entering Germany Battle of Bulge
• One month. Germans lost 120,000 troops
• April, 1945 Allies seize Berlin
• April 29,1945 Hitler marries Eva Braun
• April 30 Hitler shot himself and Braun
  swallowed poison. Bodies burned.
• May 8, 1945 V-E Day

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Yalta Conference

• Feb. 1945 FDR, Churchill, Stalin met in Yalta,
  on the Black Sea.
• Decisions made
• Create a world peace-keeping organization at the
  end of WW2 (United Nations)
• Soviets promised to enter the war against Japan,
  3 months after war ends in Europe
• Free elections in Soviet occupied Eastern Europe

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Pacific Campaign

• Douglas MacArthur Supreme Allied Commander of
  the Pacific
• Island hopping (strategy in Pacific)

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The Manhattan Project

• April 12, 1945 FDRs dies
• Harry S. Truman becomes President
• A few days later, learns about the Manhattan
  Project
• July 16, 1945 A-Bomb tested at Los Alamos, New
  Mexico

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Little Boy

• Aug. 6, 1945
• Target Hiroshima
• Carried by B-29 bomber Enola Gay
• Uranium 235
• Killed 75,000
• Injured 68,000

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Fat Man

• Aug. 9, 1945
• Target Nagasaki
• plutonium implosion-type bomb.
• Over 200,000 died resulting from injuries and
  radiation poison
• Sept. 2, 1945 official surrender

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Trumans Justifications

• Japan unwilling to surrender fight to their
  death (Kamakazi attitude)
• Huge land invasion of Japan necessary
• War could last additional 5 years 1 million more
  lives lost
• Eliminate Soviet input in post war negotiations

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Nuremberg Trials

• 1945-1949 Nuremberg, Germany
• 22 Nazi leaders tried for war crimes (crimes
  against humanity)
• 12 sentenced to death. Rest to prison
• 200 lesser leaders found guilty
• First time a nations leaders held legally
  responsible for their actions during wartime

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