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WORLD WAR II
AMERICA AT WAR
Ch 18
1941 - 1945
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
How did Roosevelt mobilize the armed forces?
 In what ways did the government prepare the
economy for war?
 How did the war affect daily life on the home
front?

PREPARING FOR WAR
President Franklin D. Roosevelt-fireside chats
 First peace time draft Sept 1940
 Increased defense spending
 Selective Training and Service Act—required
all males ages 21-36 to register for the military
service

MILITARY
GIs- abbreviation of ‘Government Issue’, name
for those in the service
 More than 16 million Americans served
 They were in the swamps, hot deserts, and evil
seas
 Front line soldiers daily struggled to stay alive
 Dreamed of home
 Fought to preserve freedoms

NATIVE AMERICANS IN THE MILITARY
Code Talkers/Wind Talkers- Navajo Marines who
operated radio waves.
 Needed a code that the enemy couldn’t crack
 Based on Navajo language
 Key in many battles

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE MILITARY
Tuskegee Airmen-first African American flying
unit
 At first officials limited African Americans to
supporting roles
 Cooks, drivers, garbage pick up
 After 1942 – gave opportunities to fight.
 Separate units
 Tuskegee Airmen

WOMEN IN THE MILITARY
Personnel shortage allowed women into all
positions EXCEPT combat.
 Women worked as clerks, typists, airfield
controllers tower operators, mechanics,
photographers, drivers.
 Some towed practice targets for antiaircraft
gunners.

DIVERSITY
300,000 Mexican Americans
 1 Million African Americans
 25, 000 Native Americans
 350,000 Women

Segregation
 1944 heavy casualties forced integration in units

PREPARING THE ECONOMY FOR WAR
Other Allies production of war goods was down
 Bombs destroyed a lot of factories
 Japan controlled much of the Pacific which cut off
precious raw materials


Rubber, oil, and tin
WAR PRODUCTION
War Production Board (WPB)- supervised the
switch from producing peacetime products to war
goods
 Office of War Mobilization:

James F. Byrnes
 Superagency in the centralization of resources
 Assistant president


Even Ford Motor company switched
WAR PRODUCTION

Henry Kaiser’s new production technique for
shipbuilding

Cut time needed to build one ship from 200 days to
40
Liberty ships—large and sturdy merchant ships
which carried supplies or troops (designed by
Kaiser)
 Cost-plus system: the government paid
businesses (who made war goods)

PRODUCTION TOTALS
1944 American production levels doubled those of
all Axis nations put together
 1945
 300,000 planes
 80,000 landing craft
 100,000 armored cars and tanks
 5,600 merchant ships
 6 million rifles, carbines, and machine guns
 41 BILLION rounds of ammunition!

WARTIME WORK FORCE
Unemployment vanished with war production
 They earned more money; wages rose 50%(adjusted for inflation)
 “Not a day passes but you’ll hear somebody say to
a worker who seems to be slowing down, ‘there’s
a war on, you know!’”

WORKFORCE
 Mostly


women workers
“There’s a war on, you know!”
Rosie the Riveter
 Why?
FINANCING WAR
Federal spending increased from $8.9 billion per
year (1939) to $95.2 billion (1945)
 GDP doubled
 U.S. spent about $321 billion (1941-1945) ten
times amount spent on WWI

PAYING FOR THE WAR
Higher taxes paid 41% of the cost of war
 Treasury Department-buy war bonds



$186 billion—total war bond sales
Went further into debt!
 1940 – deficit spending made the US debt $43
billion.
 1945 - $259 billion in debt!
HOME FRONT
Almost everyone had someone in the military
 Relied on the radio for war news
 End of the depression raised people spirits



Population grew by 7.5 million between 1940-45
30-million people moved.



Soldiers moved
Families of soldiers moved
People moved to take jobs
HOME FRONT: SHORTAGES AND CONTROLS
Goods were limited
 Metal that made zippers went to make guns
 Rubber tires for army trucks not bicycle wheels.
 Nylon stocking vanished b/c nylon was needed for
parachutes
 Those who found the ration rules confusing or
complained they would be asked “Don’t you know
there’s a war on?”

FOOD SHORTAGES
 Between
troop needs and enemy stopping
supply lines.
Sugar
 Tropical fruits
 Coffee
 Chocolate

The military needed vast amounts of food
 Gas was rationed

OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION (OPA)
When demand is greater than supply prices go
up-inflation
 OPA was to control inflation by limiting prices
and rents
 OPA assigned point values to sugar, coffee, meat,
butter, caned fruit, and shoes

RATION BOOKS
Ration books of coupons were given to last a
month
 Goods were given a certain amount of points
 Once points/coupons were used up you had to
wait for the next ration book or trade with
neighbors
 Based on family size
 Took into account distance and needs of farmers

POPULAR CULTURE
With less goods available—turned to
entertainment
 Books and magazines
 Bought recordings of popular songs (‘White
Christmas’)
 Baseball games
 Women in baseball
 Went to the movies every week (60% of the
population)

PUBLIC SUPPORT
Need to maintain morale
 Wanted citizens to participate in war effort
 Office of War Information


Created poster/ads to stir American patriotic feelings
CIVILIANS DUTIES
Blackouts
 Older men: join the Civilian Defense effort
 Kids: Scrap metal drives
 Recycling
 Women:
 Grow Victory Gardens
 Knit scarves and socks for the war
 Roll bandages for the Red Cross

SLOGANS
“Play YOUR Part”
 “Conserve and Collect”
 “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”

NORTH PLATTE CANTEEN
December 25, 1941 – April 1, 1946
 Served sandwiches, coffee, cookies and cakes to 6
million servicemen during stops.

RETAKING EUROPE: QUESTIONS
(SECTION 2)
Where did Americans join the struggle against
the Axis?
 How did the war in the Soviet Union change from
1941 to 1943?
 What role did air power play in the war in
Europe?
 Why did the invasion of Western Europe succeed?
 What events marked the end of the war in
Europe?

RETAKING EUROPE (SECTION 2)
Roosevelt and Churchill meet August 1941
 Declared principles to guide them in the war:
Atlantic Charter






They didn’t want territory
They didn’t want any territory changes
Each group of people can choose own government
Final destruction of Nazi tyranny
All nations must stop using force
THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC
Brits desperately needed Atlantic trade routes
 Allied trade ships were attacked by U-boats
(submarines)
 Allied formed convoys
 Wolf Packs
 20 U-boats that hunted enemy convoys in
packs.
 Took out 175 allied ships in 1942 alone.
 Some in sight of the US coastline.

HOW TO STOP WOLF PACKS?
SONAR: underwater sound equipment (sort of
worked)
 175 Allied ships sunk in June 1942
 Long range sub hunting aircraft-worked
 Better depth charges
 Cut off U-Boats from their ports in Germany and
France.

THE MAJOR PLAYERS OF THE ATLANTIC
WAR; WESTERN FRONT; EUROPEAN
THEATRE
Churchill – Prime Minister of England
 Roosevelt – US President
 Josef Stalin – Chairman of Soviet Union

PLAYERS FOR THE FASCISTS
Hitler – Germany
 Mussolini - Italy

THE GENERALS: ALLIES
 Dwight
“Ike” Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)
 Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces
 Excelled at


Staffing issues
Diplomacy
THE GENERALS: UNITED STATES
George Patton : 1885 – 1945.
 As a boy knew he wanted to be a
hero.
 LOVED war.
 Early on realized the potential
for tanks.
 Did NOT have good diplomacy
skills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh9S1
Hk975U
THE BRILLIANT NAZI GENERALS
Rommel “The Desert Fox”
 Erwin Rommel (1891 – 1944)
 Great tank commander
 Used surprise and bold moves.
 Was NOT a member of the Nazi
party

THE NORTH AFRICA CAMPAIGN
 February
1943: US had their butts kicked
by the Nazis.
 May 1943: US came back, defeated Nazis
and took 240,000 German and Italians
prisoners.

2000 ended up in POW camps in Nebraska.
 Roosevelt
strategy
and Churchill met again to decide
INVASION OF ITALY: START RETAKING
EUROPE

7th Army under Patton took Sicily and the
English started to invade the mainland of Italy.
 Mussolini’s
Fascists turned against him.
 Nazis rescued Mussolini

Set him up in a Puppet Government in
northern Italy
THERE IS STILL MORE…
Battle of Anzio and Cassino trapped Americans
and English and went from January – May 1944.
 Allies v. German Nazis
 April 1945 Italy was in Allied control.

ITALY: END OF MUSSOLINI
Finally after heavy fighting complete surrender
by Italy
 Caught by the Italians as he tried to leave Italy
and escape to Germany.
 Ended by the Italians.

WAR IN THE SOVIET UNION
 The
Germans advance in Russia 1941 –
1942.
 Germans quickly gained control
 Blitzkrieg
 Nazis were first greeted as liberators by
the ethnic nationalities in Russia.

They hated Stalin.
SOVIET UNION
 Nazis




turned on the local people.
Executions
Forced labor
People engaged in guerrilla actions against the
Nazis.
Stalin had the army destroy everything
SOVIET UNION
Guerrilla Warfare
 Scorched Earth Policy
 Stalin BEGGED Roosevelt and Churchill to
invade Western Europe to take some pressure off
the Red Army.
 S.U. weapon: Winter

BATTLES
 Battle
of Stalingrad
 September 1942 – January 1943
Firebombing
 Shelling
 Winter counter attack by S.U.

 Turning
point in the eastern war
 German Surrendered
“Completely cut off, the men in the field grey just
slouched on, invariable filthy and invariable
louse-ridden, their weary shoulders sagging, from
one defense position to another. The icy winds of
those great white wastes which stretched for ever
beyond us to the east lashed a million crystals or
razor-like snow into their unshaven faces, skin
now loose-stretched over bone, so utter was the
exhaustion, so utter the starvation”
 German infantryman Dec 1942

BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

Jan 31, 1943:
90,000 surviving Germans surrendered,
 Germany lost 330,000 troops at Stalingrad
 Soviet losses not known: estimated 1,100,000

Nazis lost their holdings in Russia.
 Siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg today)

THE ALLIED AIR WAR
 Carpet


Scattering large number of bombs over a
wide area
40,000 died in one day in Hamburg, Germany
 B-17s

Bombing
Flying Fortress
Bombed: aircraft factories, railways, plants, bridges,
cities
INVASION OF WESTERN EUROPE
Time to go after the Nazis in Germany.
 Allies are going to invade Europe but where?
 D-Day

D-DAY: WHY JUNE 6TH?
 Rommel’s


wife’s birthday!
Took the chance he would go to be with her.
He took the bait!
D-DAY (OPERATION OVERLORD)
 June
6, 1944 some 4,600 invasion craft
left England for France.
 1,000 RAF aircraft dropped 23,000
paratroopers in France
 D-Day: day the invasion of Western
Europe began
D-DAY
150,000 Allied troops and equipment came
ashore along 60 miles of Normandy coast
 Largest landing by sea in history
 Germans resisted-a lot
 But half million men came ashore

“It seemed like the whole world exploded. There
was gunfire from battleships, destroyers, and
cruisers. The bombers were still hitting the
beaches… As we went in, we could see small craft
from the 116th infantry that had gone in ahead,
sunk. There were bodies bobbing in the water,
even out three or four miles.”
 -Lieutenant Robert Edlin

D-DAY OMAHA BEACH
Killing Zone
 12 major resistance nests that reigned fire down
over every inch of the beach.
 IF they made it to the beach.

D-DAY: OMAHA
If you made it to the beach
 If you made it across the beach
 You had to climb up a cliff to reach the Germans.

D-DAY UTAH
Landing was hard – currents.
 Trouble happened later.
 Hedgerow fighting

D-DAY
3,000 American, British
casualties
 2,000 German casualties
 By the next week 500,000
Allies were in France.

LIBERATING FRANCE
Patton used a Blitzkrieg to blow a
hole through the Germans to
advance out of Normandy.
 Then pushed on towards Paris
 With French Resistance they
liberated Paris August 25, 1944.

BATTLE OF THE BULGE
December 1944 Germans cut off part of the
American army from the main group.
 German attacked and pushed back U.S. army
 Forming a bulge in the Allied line


Patton did an amazing movement in winter of
troops to save the American forces.



600,000 GI soldiers involved
80,000 killed, wounded
100,000 Germans killed
THE WAR IN EUROPE ENDS
Difficult fighting in France between Germany &
S.U.
 More than 9 million soldiers were fighting on the
eastern front
 Horrific costs: 11million Soviets and 3 millions
Germans killed

GERMANY SURRENDERS
Crossing the Elbe River
 Hitler stayed in Berlin as Soviets surrounded
 He committed suicide on April 30, 1945
 May 8, 1945: Germany surrenders
 V-E: Victory in Europe.

YALTA CONFERENCE
FDR, Churchill, Stalin met to discuss the peace.
 Plan was to divide German territories and Berlin
into four zones, each controlled by an Ally:
England, US, France, Russia.





Repair the economy
Rid the zone of Nazis
Hold free elections
Get out after repairs are done.
YALTA
 Stalin



didn’t keep to the agreement.
Punished the Germans
Stole what was left of the economy
Did NOT hold free elections.

Put puppet communist regimes in.