WWII

1. WWII The World in Flames

2. Subhas Chandra Bose

3. The Journey of Subhas Chandra Bose Once in Germany he finds a safe way to get home Bose heads for Germany through Russia, taking advantage of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact He is escorted by a German submarine to the Indian Ocean He switches to a Japanese sub for the remaining trip back to India. India: Bose’s journey begins

4. I. Introduction: Pearl Harbor ended the illusion that the United States could be a world power and remain safe from world conflict.

5. II. America Organizes for War. A. Arms for global war. 1.FDR set up the War Production Board (WPB) to convert the economy to a war footing. 2.The WPB took control of the allocation of critical war materials. 3. Agencies were also set up to deal with allocating food and manpower. 4.The proportion of the economy devoted to war production soared from 15 to 33 percent in 1942.

6. B. The fight for stabilization. 1.Federal purchases increased from $6 billion in 1940 to $89 billion in 1944. 2.These additional expenditures were paid for through income tax surcharges, but mostly through borrowing.

7. 3. Tremendous public spending caused inflationary pressures, because the consumer goods production dropped just as people started to have money to spend again. a. Additional taxation and encouraging the purchase of war bonds mopped up some of the excess demand. b. Rationing and price controls were slated to take care of the rest, administered by the Office of Price Administration (OPA).

8. C. The people behind the lines. 1. To combat the threat of enemy activity within the United States, FDR gave the FBI increased authority, including wire tapping in national security cases. 2. However, 1941-1945 did not see the widespread abuse of civil freedoms that had occurred in 1917-1920, nor were German or Italian-Americans subject to jingoistic harassment.

9. 3. The tragic exception to this trend was the brutal internment of Japanese-Americans. 4. The war had the effect of increasing the equality of income distribution, as incomes rose for most Americans, while income tax surcharges redistributed much of the gain made by the wealthy. 5. Most people put up with rationing, shortages, and the disappearance of certain consumer goods, in the expectation they would be able live more comfortably after the war on the money they accumulated during it.

10. 6. Some 6.5 million women, many of them married, joined the labor force during the war, but most did not question traditional attitudes towards women's roles, the disparity between men's and women's wages, or the lack of day-care center for working mothers.

11. 7. The war also offered new employment opportunities for blacks, although they were slow to be hired. Continued discrimination in employment and the military fostered unprecedented and often effective black militancy. a. Negro March on Washington Committee: forced FDR to sign an executive order (8802) forbidding discrimination in defense industries, to be enforced by the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). b. FEPC had problems enforcing 8802, and military took only token steps toward desegregating the armed forces.

12. c. The Congress on Race Equality (CORE) was founded during the war and successfully employed sit-ins and other nonviolent tactics to desegregate various Northern restaurants, theaters, and skating rinks. d. The movement of many blacks to northern and southern industrial centers led to conflict with prejudiced whites, who perceived them as competing for jobs, housing, and schooling. e. Episodes of racial violence erupted in 1943 in New York and Detroit involving blacks and in Los Angeles involving Mexican-Americans.

13. D. Early politics of the war. 1. The trend in Congress remained conservative, as the dominating coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats seized the opportunity to liquidate New Deal agencies that had appeared to have lost their function. 2. This trend was strengthened by the 1942 midterm elections, which coming before significant Allied victories, led to Republican gains. 3. Congress did assist in the war effort. a. Senate War Investigating Committee: chaired by Harry S. Truman, exposed waste and corruption in the war effort.

14. III.The War in Europe. A. Beat Hitler first: American strategists decided that the thrust of the American war effort had to be directed toward Germany, before Japan. 1. With its control of the European coast and access to the Atlantic, Germany seemed a bigger immediate threat to the Western Hemisphere; particularly Latin America. 2. German also seemed more likely than Japan to produce threatening military technological advances. 3. Britain was much more accessible to assistance than China. 4. Germany had to be prevented from defeating Russia, and the German's stretched resources after the invasion made them seem the more vulnerable foe.

15. B. Diverging strategies in Europe. 1. Britain proposed to weaken Germany via naval blockade, bombing, and psychological warfare before launching a major assault into occupied Europe. 2. Americans favored an immediate assault into France to establish a second front.

16. C. Detour to North Africa. 1.When the British turned down plans for a cross channel invasion in 1942, they made a counterproposal for an invasion of North Africa as preliminary for a cross channel assault in 1943. 2.This idea was accepted by the United States and the operation was placed under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. 3.The invasion in November 1942 proved successful, as Vichy forces in N. Africa went over to the Allied side, which caused Hitler to occupy the Vichy zone of France and rush additional troops to N. Africa. 4.With one reverse at Kasserine Pass, Anglo-American forces defeated the Germans in N. Africa by May 1943 and effectively made the Mediterranean an Allied lake.

17. D. The Mediterranean or France? 1. American planners reluctantly accepted British advice to continue the campaign in the Mediterranean. 2. The result was the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and Italy in September 1943. 3.The invasion of Sicily caused Mussolini to be toppled from power, but German troops suppressed the new Italian government and stiffly resisted the Allied advance up the mountainous Italian boot, which was best suited for defense. 4.The slow and costly advance in Italy, plus Soviet demands for a second front in France, finally overturned British desires for further Mediterranean campaigns.

18. 5. Operation Overlord was finally executed on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944, surprising the Germans as to the landing location; by July the Allies had broken through the German lines, liberating Paris by the end of August 1944. 6. This campaign, the Allied air assault on Germany itself, and Russian offensives on the Eastern front made Hitler's situation increasingly desperate.

19. IV. The War in the Pacific. A. Holding the line. 1. Japanese forces advanced quickly for the first three months of the war: taking Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and finally the Philippines. 2. Allied efforts early in the Pacific war were devoted to keeping open lines of communication with Australia and harassing the Japanese as opportunities presented themselves. 3. The Battle of the Coral Sea stopped Japanese hopes of continuing its advance in the south Pacific and threatening Australia. 4. In response the Japanese shifted operations to the north-central Pacific, aiming to seize Midway Island. Having broken the Japanese military code, the American met and defeated the Japanese thrust at the Battle of Midway, which ended the Japanese ability to launch long range offensive operations.

20. B. The road to Tokyo. 1. Japanese bases in the Solomon Islands still threatened lines of communication with Australia. a. American forces pushed the Japanese out of Guadalcanal Island in six months of grueling fighting ending in February 1943. 2. Such victories enabled American planners to push for additional resources for the Pacific to launch offensive operations.

21. 3. American troops used an "island hopping" strategy to bypass and isolate strong Japanese garrisons, minimizing losses.

22. C. Luzon or Formosa? 1. MacArthur insisted on the recapture of the Philippines, not only for strategic reasons, but because he had promised to return after fleeing the islands in 1942. 2. Nimitz wished to bypass the Philippines in favor of invading Formosa. 3. In the October 1944, FDR ruled in favor of MacArthur and he fulfilled his promised return to the Philippines on October 20, 4. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf during MacArthur's Philippines campaign, the remaining Japanese naval forces were largely destroyed. a. The Japanese now had to cope with a naval blockade and devastating bombing campaign against the home islands.

23. V. The Fourth Term A. Politics as usual. 1. The conservative Congress after 1942 nipped at the edges of the New Deal and FDR gave them ground in his concentration on winning the war.

24. B. The campaign of 1944. 1. Willkie's internationalism and liberal turn ruled him out as a Republican presidential candidate and the party instead turned Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York. 2. The struggle with the Democrats was not over the renomination of FDR for a fourth term, but over Henry A. Wallace's renomination for Vice-President. a. Wallace was opposed by southern wing and the urban bosses as too liberal. b. Truman riding on the prestige of leading the campaign against war production corruption and waste was chosen.

25. 3. The campaign was overshadowed by the war and its results, although they were closest victory he had faced for president, showed FDR was the chosen leader to shape the peace. 4. Electoral results. a. Electoral College. 1) FDR: 432 2) Dewey: 99 b. Popular Vote. 1) FDR: 54.8% 2) Dewey: 44.8%

26. VI. The Diplomacy of Coalition. A. The question of war aims. 1. FDR's war aims: the Four Freedoms. a. Stated in January 1941, before the war, as freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. b. These aims were further particularized in the Atlantic Charter, which envisioned a United Nations as the cornerstone of a postwar security arrangement.

27. 2. In practice any postwar settlement would be dominated by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. a. The United States and Great Britain, with common traditions and interests had little difficulty establishing a working partnership, despite occasional tensions. b. The main problem was that the Russians continued to view the world primarily in terms of spheres of influence and balances of power. They saw control of Eastern Europe as absolutely essential to their security. c. Yet during the war, Stalin's need for assistance and a second front muted his strategic and ideological goals.

28. B. The early wartime conferences. 1. Casablanca (January 1943): FDR and Churchill planned future operations in the Mediterranean, and stated there would be no end to the war except by "unconditional surrender" of the Axis forces. 2. Further meetings between Churchill and FDR took place in Washington D.C. and in Quebec. C. From Big Two to Big Three. 1. Teheran (November 1943): the meeting between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin concentrated on military problems, principally the cross-channel invasion, but also they also discussed the future of Germany, Eastern Europe, the Far East, and the shape of the postwar peace system.

29. D. Postwar planning. 1. The fate of Germany was the main question; sentiment was initially to break it up and de-industrialize it, but this was eventually replaced by an agreement for a joint occupation of Germany and Berlin. 2. The fate of Poland was a divisive question: Stalin refused to accept the Polish government-in-exile in London. It set up a pro-Soviet government in Lublin as a nucleus for postwar pro-Soviet Polish regime.

30. IV. Triumph and Tragedy. A. The Big Three at Yalta (November 1944): this conference found the Allies on the verge of victory, although the European war would drag on until May 1945. 1. The Yalta conference "settled" the question of Poland, agreeing to an interim coalition government of London and Lublin personnel, pending free elections. 2. They added France to the powers to occupy Germany, while evading a Russian demand for reparations.

31. 3. FDR also secured a commitment from Stalin to enter the Pacific War, two to three months after the end of the European War, in return for territorial concessions from Japan and economic concessions in China. 4. Churchill and FDR also obtained Stalin's consent to organize the United Nations (UN).

32. 5. The conference was later to become a topic of bitter debate. a. Right-wing critics charged FDR and Churchill with betraying Eastern Europe and China in a vain effort to appease Stalin. b. Left-wing critics charged that Stalin conceded more than FDR and Churchill, and that American policy aimed achieving world domination, promoting counterrevolution, achieving hegemony for American interests in Eastern Europe and the Far East.

33. c. The truth probably falls somewhere in the middle. Yalta failed because Stalin abandoned his promises in regard to Eastern Europe and China, Russian troops already occupied most of the areas seized by the USSR, FDR wanted to pull out American troops from Europe by two years from the end of the war, and he had not conceded that Eastern European regimes should be left-wing--merely friendly to the Russians.

34. B. Victory in Europe. 1. The last-gasp German offensive (Battle of the Bulge) in the Ardennes in December 1944 quickly collapsed. 2. With approaching victory, the Russian rationale for cooperation with the United States and Great Britain was fast disappearing. a. Stalin obstructed political freedom in Poland and Romania and accused the Americans and British of attempting to negotiate a separate peace with Germany. b. FDR responded to Stalin's allegations as "vile misrepresentations" but soon died of a massive brain hemorrhage on April 12, 1945.

35. 3. Churchill argued that Allied forces should race to capture Berlin before the Russians did, but both Eisenhower and the new American president, Harry S. Truman, proved reluctant; partly for fear of jeopardizing Soviet cooperation in the United Nations, and partly because of the need to redeploy American troops to the Pacific. 4. The final collapse occurred in May. a. Rather than surrender, Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. b. The Germans accepted unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945.

36. C. Victory in the Far East. 1. Japanese resistance stiffened as American forces drew nearer to the home islands. They resorted to suicide tactics such as banzai charges and kamikaze attacks by planes. 2. The decisive factor in bringing the Far East war to a close was development of an atomic bomb by the top secret Manhattan Project launched in early in the war. 3. In July 1945, the Japanese put out peace feelers through the Russians, but still rejected unconditional surrender.

37. 4. In response to this Truman put out the Potsdam Declaration, reiterating American insistence on unconditional surrender and warning cryptically of the "utter devastation" that awaited Japan if it refused. 5. The Japanese rejection of the Potsdam Declaration and the successful test of the A-bomb on July 16, convinced Truman that he had no choice but to use the bomb. 6. Two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Russian invasion of Manchuria were not enough to convince the Japanese military hardliners to surrender, and only the personal intervention of the emperor made them accept the Allied terms. They formally surrendered on September 2, 1945.

38. Ongoing Controversies • Did FDR know about Pear Habor in advance? • Could U. S. have done something to liberate death camps sooner? • Did the U. S. really need to nuke Japan? • Was FDR duped at Yalta? • Was WWII an unnecessary war?

39. Balance Sheet • 20 Million soldiers and 40 million civilians died world wide • War cost approximately $1,000,000,000,000 • 6 million Soviets died in Battle • U. S. lost 294,000 servicemen in combat, 600,000 wounded, and 114,000 others killed in war related accidents.