UNIT VII



UNIT II

WORLD WAR II

THE UNITED STATES IN A MENACING WORLD

INTRODUCTION

1. FDR’s Administration remained aloof from world crises

a. US was in depression

b. Axis powers (Italy, Germany & Japan) became aggressive & militaristic

c. Americans are ambivalent:

• avoid stumbling into another war OR help embattled democracies abroad

A. FDR’s NATIONALISM & THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY

1. During the Depression, FDR put US economic interests first

a. Sec. of State Hull pushed for free trade & international economic cooperation

b. FDR balks, but looks at Latin America differently

2. “Good Neighbor Policy”

a. FDR committed to international approach to Latin America

• offset decades of bitterness toward “Yankee imperialism”

b. 1933 Inaugural address – FDR announces “Good Neighbor Policy”

• rejects TR’s “Big Stick” policy (US had moral right to use force to correct “wrongdoing” in LA)

c. US declares: “No state had the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another”

3. Based on the G.N. policy, FDR

a. withdrew troops from D.R & Haiti

b. obtained a treaty w/Panama

• reducing US role in Panama’s commercial rights to the Canal Zone

c. persuades Am. Bankers to loosen grip on Haiti’s banking system

d. renounces Platt Amendment

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4. Cuba

a. falling sugar exports related to US quotas imposed by the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930) led to economic crisis

• 1933 revolution led by Grau San Martin

• US refused to recognize San Martin gov’t, but did not send in the Marines

• FDR sends indirect aid to a conservative revolt led by Fulgencio Batista

b. 1934 – Sumner Welles (US Ambassador to Cuba) & US warships “visited” San Martin

c. San Martin was over thrown & replaced by Fulgencio Batista

• US quickly lowered tariff on Cuban sugarcane

• Cuban exports to US rose

• Economic assistance allows Batista to retain power

• He will rule Cuba on & off until overthrown by Castro (1959)

5. Mexico

a. Lazaro Cardenas took power in 1936

• promptly nationalized several US & British oil companies

b. US conceded Mexico’s right to nationalize – but insisted on fair compensation

• US pressured Cardenas economically by suspending US purchases of Mexican silver

c. after negotiations, Mexico & the oil companies worked out an agreement

6. The Good Neighbor policy substitutes economic leverage for military intervention

• brings better relations necessary for hemispheric solidarity during WWII and Cold War

THE RISE OF FASCISM IN EUROPE & ASIA

1. Italy – Mussolini hopes to recreate Roman Empire

2. Germany – Hitler and the Nazi’s want lebensraum

3. Japan

a. fanatically nationalistic militarists took control of the gov’t & began policy of expansion

• acquiring coal, petroleum, metals, and timber for heavy industry

b. 1931-1932 Japanese troops occupied Manchuria

• set up a puppet regime – renamed “Manchukuo”

c. 1937 – Japan launched full-scale war against China

d. FDR objected to Japan’s aggressiveness (more than Italy’s & Germany’s) because it threatened US economic interests

4. 1936 – Germany, Italy & Japan signed treaties of alliance & mutual defense

THE AMERICAN MOOD: NO MORE WAR

1. Most Americans had come to believe that the decision for war in 1917 had been a ghastly mistake

2. Books and films reinforced this conclusion

a. US had been dragged into war by banking & corporate interests desperate to protect their millions in loans & weapons sales to England & France

b. Others focused on propaganda techniques by US which brainwashed people into supporting the war

3. Nye Committee (1934-36)

a. Senate investigation headed by Senator Gerald Nye

b. committee compiled evidence of the involvement of US banks & corps in financing WWI and supplying arms to the Allies

c. Nye Committe concluded the most important factors leading to US involvement in WWI (1917) was the need to protect US bank loans to Allies

4. Neutrality Acts (1935-1937)

a. Law passed to support longing for peace - tried to prevent repeating same circumstances which dragged US into WWI

• laws outlawed arms sales or loans to nations at war

• forbade Americans from traveling on ships of belligerent powers

b. 1937 – Congress extended Neutrality Acts to cover Spain’s civil war

c. At the outbreak of WWII, US revised neutrality statutes

• belligerents could buy weapons provided they paid in cash & used their own ships f/transport

5. Critics of the Neutrality Acts (including FDR) point out:

a. Laws failed to distinguish between aggressors & victims, subsequently helping aggressive nations

b. When Japan invaded China (1937), FDR refused to invoke provisions of NA (because no side actually declared war) in order to remain free to extend loans to the Chinese

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6. High point in efforts to promote peace legislation came in 1938

a. Lois Ludlow (Indiana) proposed constitutional amendment requiring national referendum on any US declaration of war, except in case of direct attack

b. Congress barely rejects amendment - FDR makes a direct plea against amendment

B. HESITANT RESPONSE TO THE FASCIST CHALLENGE

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1. Americans reacted slowly to fascism & militarism of Italy, Germany & Japan

a. Many admired Mussolini for his discipline, etc…

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2. Hitler even found fans in US

a. 1939 – German-American Bund – pro-Nazi organization filled Madison Square Garden

b. Silver Shirts

• led by anti-Semite William Dudley Pelley

• even had the S.S. acronym

c. some liked Hitler simply because of his anticommunism

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3. Unsympathetic Americans ridiculed rather than feared Hitler & Mussolini

a. political cartoonists (including Time) drew Mussolini’s jaw & Hitler’s goose-stepping troops

4. Some Americans were apprehensive toward fascism

a. Harvard professor Howard Mumford Jones warned that Nazi book burning & suppression of free speech threatened freedom everywhere

5. Whatever their thoughts on fascism, most Americans strongly opposed US military response

6. FDR advocated adequate defenses & naval expansion as early as 1933

a. at same time as dealing w/domestic issues, he dealt w/international affairs

b. communicated w/world leaders (even Hitler & Mussolini) seeking peace accommodations

7. bowing to US antiwar sentiment, FDR never went ahead of US public opinion

a. 1935 – FDR: US would never again enter a foreign war

b. 1937 – FDR suggested possibility of a “quarantine” of aggressor nations to stop “the epidemic of world lawlessness”

• he backed off when public didn’t agree

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8. FDR thought it best to negotiate w/Hitler

a. Sent telegram of praise to Chamberlain after the signing of Munich Pact (1938)

• assured State Dept official that he was “not a bit upset” over the agreement

• Americans shared FDR’s support f/the Pact

9. Various reasons Americans were hesitant to respond to events in Europe

a. Since 1790’s, US foreign policy sought to avoid entanglement in Old World quarrels & disputes

b. Deep-seated isolationist impulse reinforced by WWI because most felt it was a mistake

c. The Depression preoccupied US public awareness

10. 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin

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a. Only real confrontation w/Hitlerism

b. African-American track star Jesse Owens confounded Nazi racial theories

• won 4 gold medals

• broke or tied 3 world records

c. 1938 – Joe Lewis also TKO’d Max Schmeling in NYC

11. Washington DC responded w/more uneasiness to Japan’s invasion of China than to Hitler or Mussolini

a. US had long history of business interests w/China

b. Americans were interested & sympathetic to China

c. Religious groups saw China as ripe for missionary work

d. Gov’t policy makers saw China’s economic potential for US exports

• “Open Door policy” – US guaranteeing all nations equal commercial access in China

12. Japan’s expansionism of 1930’s (Manchuria & then China) threatened Open Door policy

a. Commerce Dept. pointed out the closing of China to US meant loss of $100 million in annual cotton sales

b. Japanese goods (textiles) might flood world market

• General “Billy” Mitchell: “Japan is our most dangerous enemy, and our planes should be designed to attack her.”

• FDR privately speculated about the possibility of war w/Japan

c. Publicly, Washington reacted to Japan’s actions in China symbolically – Hoover & FDR refused to recognize Japan’s puppet regime in Manchuria

d. After Japan’s invasion of China, US sent loans to China and urged Americans to boycott Japanese silk

e. 1938 – US ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, protests Japan’s violation of Open Door Policy

• Japan said Open Door was “inapplicable” to the condition of “today and tomorrow”

• US did little else as Japan tightened their grip on China

1938-1939: THE GATHERING STORM

1. 5 ½ months after “Peace in our time” Germany invaded Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939

a. 5 months later came the Nazi-Soviet Pact

2. European situation intensified debate over US role

a. Some still held out for peace

• “The place to save democracy is at home” – historian Carl Becker

b. Pacifist & neutralist sentiment was weakening

c. In 1938 Lewis Mumford issues “A Call to Arms” in the New Republic

• He warns of “malignant character and cancerous spread” of fascism

3. After fall of Czech. & Albania (early in 1939), FDR publicly called on Hitler & Mussolini to pledge not to invade 31 specifically listed nations

a. Hitler read FDR’s message to an amused Reichstag

b. Mussolini mocked FDR’s physical disability – his paralysis had apparently reached his brain

4. FDR sent more than a message

a. Oct. 1938 – FDR asks Congress for a $300 million military appropriation

b. Nov. 1938 – he instructed the Army Air Corps to plan for annual production of 20,000 planes

c. Jan. 1939 – he asked Congress for a $1.3 billion defense budget

d. FDR called Hitler & Mussolini “madmen” who “respect force & force alone”

AMERICA & THE JEWISH REFUGEES

1. Hitler / Nazis had made hatred of the Jews official policy

a. 1935 – Nuremberg Laws denied German Jews citizenship & many legal rights

b. 1938 – anti-Semitic campaign became more brutal

• attempting to force Jews out of the country

• Nazis barred Jews from attending concerts or plays

• expelled Jews from schools & universities

• required Jews to register all their property

c. Hitler “fined” $400 million on entire German Jewish population because of an assassination of a German official in Paris

2. Kristallnacht – “the Night of Broken Glass (Nov. 9-10, 1938)

a. systematic & well-coordinated violent rampage carried out all over Germany & Austria

b. Nazi thugs vandalized Jewish homes, burned Synagogues & destroyed Jewish businesses

• even Jewish hospitals, old people’s homes & children’s boarding schools

3. Hitler’s intent became obvious

a. This repression foreshadowed policy of outright extermination – “final solution” to the “Jewish problem”

b. Jews, who had started leaving Germany in 1933, now fled by the thousands – wherever they could go

• From 1933 to 1938 around 60,000 came to the US

4. Several hundred distinguished scholars, musicians, writers, artists & scientists came to the US

a. Pianist Rudolph Serkin, composer Bela Bartok, & future Sec. of State Henry Kissinger

• physicists Leo Szilard, James Frank, & Enrico Fermi (who would play a big role in building the atomic bomb)

5. Although forced to come, they quickly rebuilt their careers – the director of a university art center commented wryly: “Hitler is my best friend. He shakes the tree and I collect the apples”

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6. US proved far more reluctant to grant sanctuary to the mass of Nazism’s Jewish victims

a. The 60,000 Jews admitted to the US by end of 1938 were just a fraction of the total refugees

b. Congress consistently rejected efforts to liberalize immigration law w/discriminatory quotas

7. FDR mirrored Americans attitudes

a. Americans professed to deplore the persecution of the Jews– only a minority favored admitting more refugees

• 75% responded NO to a survey asking if US should amend immigration act to admit “a larger number of Jewish exiles from Germany”

b. Isolationist & anti-immigration sentiments (perhaps due to anti-Semitism) severely limited US’s response to the tragedy of Europe’s Jews

8. The St. Louis

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a. Graphic illustration of US attitude

b. June 1930 – the St. Louis loaded w/900-950 Jewish refugees was denied landing permit in Havana

c. Sailed to Fort Lauderdale, but US refused request to unload human cargo

• Coast Guard cutter stood by “to prevent possible attempts by refugees to jump off & swim ashore”

d. St. Louis forced to sail back across Atlantic to Europe

WAGING GLOBAL WAR (1939-1945)

I. INTO THE STORM (1939-1941)

Introduction

1. 20 years after WWI, US drawn into another world war

a. FDR hoped neutrality would keep peace & security

b. German victories in western Europe in 1940 ended that thought process

c. FDR then tried economic intervention rather than military involvement – Lend-Lease w/Britain

d. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor ended that

e. 1942 was gloomiest year of war for US – the military thought it would be a 7 to 15 year war

Storm in Europe

1. Hitler invades Poland on September 1, 1939

a. Britain & France declare war on Germany 2 days later

b. FDR invoked Neutrality Acts

c. FDR didn’t repeat Wilson’s appeal to Americans to be “impartial in thought as well as in action”

2. FDR asks Congress to revise Neutrality Act’s prohibition against sale of weapons to belligerents

a. Nations engaged in war to purchase arms in the US if the belligerents paid cash & carried the arms away in their own ships (“cash-and-carry”)

3. Lull in European war – “phony war”

a. Germany then takes Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France

b. The British stage spectacular rescue operation across the English Channel at Dunkirk

c. Churchill” “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields; we shall never surrender”

d. Germans bypass Maginot line – France surrenders on June 22 on same railway car at same spot where Germany had surrendered in 1918

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4. Battle of Britain (1940)

a. Hitler turned to bombing cities / civilians

b. Churchill pleaded for more US aid

• most favored support for Britain

• some opposed assistance because: it was a waste of materials needed in US or they considered the war not vital to US interests

From Isolation to Intervention

1. The Election of 1940 – FDR ran for an unprecedented 3rd term

a. Nazi threat forced conservative Democrats to accept FDR’s Sec of Agriculture Henry Wallace as VP

2. Republicans nominate Wendell L. Willkie (Indiana) who called for more aid to England

3. FDR played role of national leader – too busy w/defense & diplomacy to engage in partisan politics

a. Adds Republicans to Cabinet

b. Uses exec. Agreement w/Churchill to transfer 50 US destroyers from WWI to Britain for leases on British air & naval bases in western hemisphere – Lend / Lease

4. Anti-interventionist:

a. Arch-conservative America First Committee

• financed by Henry Ford

• Charles Lindbergh was most popular speaker

• “Fortress America”

b. Majority of Americans supported FDR’s angle

5. “Lend-Lease”

a. With 4 more years in office, FDR called for US to be the “great arsenal of democracy”

b. “lend-lease” plan allowed president to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the US”

c. Congress passed bill March 1941 approving lend-lease and abolishing the cash provision of the Neutrality Act

d. FDR defended dealing with communists by saying that in order to defeat Hitler, “I would hold hands w/the Devil”

6. Transatlantic Supply

a. German U-boats were destroying British ships

b. US Navy convoyed British ships a/lend-lease supplies

c. US occupies Greenland & Iceland keeping Danish islands out of Nazi hands

7. Atlantic Charter

a. FDR & Churchill meet off Newfoundland (mid-August, 1941) to discuss joint military strategy

b. Atlantic Charter

• condemned aggression

• affirmed national self-determination

• endorsed principles of free trade, collective security & disarmament

c. German U-boat fires on US destroyer

• FDR: Nazis are “the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic”

• Ok’s Navy to open fire on Axis vessels

• Rueben James sank by U-boat killing 115 of 160

d. US was fighting a limited war and full-scale war seemed imminent

A. Toward Pearl Harbor

1. Hitler’s success encouraged Japan to expand further into Asia

a. FDR saw Germany as primary threat

• sought to pressure Japan w/o provoking war until US had a “two-ocean navy”

b. Nov, 1941 report by Joint Board of the Army & Navy advised FDR to prolong negotiations w/Japan

2. Japan & the US hoped to avoid war, but neither compromised its goals:

• Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere (much of China, Southeast Asia & west Pacific)

• US’s Open Door Policy & status quo in Asia

a. Japan thought US goals were a ploy to deny Japan’s rise to world power

b. US thought Japan’s goals were a ploy to hide its aggression

c. Decades of “yellow-peril” propaganda & Japan’s aggression hardened US policy toward Japan

• no isolationist groups formed to oppose a clash w/Japan

3. FDR used economic pressure to stop Japan’s expansion

a. Mid-1939, US ended its 1911 Treaty of Trade & Navigation w/Japan

b. 1940 – US banned sale of aviation fuel & scrap metal to Japan

c. After Tripartite Pact (Germany, Italy & Japan in 1940), FDR extended embargo to steel, other metals, etc.

4. General Hideki Tojo replaces a more conciliatory prime minister in October 1941

• Sets December date for a pre-emptive attack on US

5. US intelligence alerts FDR that war is imminent; Japan:

• Banked on a knock-out punch w/attack on Pearl Harbor

• Believed that FDR would be preoccupied w/Germany and would seek accommodations w/Japan

6. Pearl Harbor attacked on December 7, 1941

• Warships crippled

• 350 planes destroyed

• 2500 killed, 1200 wounded

• Aircraft carriers were at sea

7. Accusations that FDR knew of the attack and allowed it to happen to draw the US into war are unproven

8. December 8, 1941 Congress declares war on Japan

• 3 days later Germany and Italy declare war on US

• Congress immediately reciprocates

9. U-boats wreak havoc in the Atlantic

• Keeps the Chesapeake bottled up for nearly six weeks

• By the end of 1942, U-boats had sunk a thousand Allied ships which offset the pace of American production

10. War news from Africa and Europe – “all bad”

• Hitler had conquered territory from Moscow to the Pyrenees and Norway to Libya

• The Nazi North Africa Korps was marching toward Cairo and the Suez Canal which was the British oil lifeline

11. Japan takes Guam, Wake Island, Singapore, Burma, and the Dutch East Indies

• Japan takes 11,000+ prisoners in the Philippines by May 1942

• Japan controls hundreds of Pacific islands and territory from Siberia to the border of India

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I. AMERICA MOBILIZES

A. Introduction

1. December 1941, American armed forces numbered only 1.6 million; only 15% of industrial output was going to war production

• By wars end 15 million men and 350,000 women would serve

2. Congress passes the War Powers Act granting the president unprecedented power over all aspects of the conduct of the war

3. Mobilization would require the unprecedented coordination of the American gov’t, economy and military.

B. Organizing for Victory

1. What two groups would be created to direct the military and espionage?

2. What was the:

• War Production Board

• War Manpower Commission

• National War Labor Board

• Office of Price Administration

• Office of War Mobilization

3. What was the miracle of war production achieved after February 1942?

4. What were the costs of such breakneck production?

5. What would the executive branch and the defense industry be called a generation later?

6. How and why did American corporations profit from the war effort?

C. A War Economy

1. Read and take very brief notes on this section.

"A Wizard War”

1. Churchill called WWII “a wizard war” emphasizing scientific & technological developments of the war

a. Scientists participated in developing new weapons, chemicals, medicines & medical techniques

b. Weapons:

• radar & sonar devices

• rocket weapons

• bomb fuses

• jet aircraft

c. Medicine:

• improvements in blood transfusion & blood-banking techniques

• “miracle drugs” – antibiotics & penicillin

2. Manhattan Project – the atomic bomb

a. Albert Einstein – physicist & Jewish refugee from Germany warned FDR that Germany sought to use atomic physics to make weapon

b. 1941 – launched Anglo-American secret program to produce an atomic bomb - Russians were excluded

c. 1942 – US physicists achieved a controlled atomic reaction under the Univ. of Chicago football field

d. 1943 & 1944 – Manhattan Engineering District (code name given to atomic research program) stockpiled uranium -235 & plutonium

e. 1945 – two bombs assembled utilizing fissionable material

f. Manhattan Project secretly employed more than 120,000 people & spent nearly $2 billion

3. July 16, 1945, bomb tested in Alamorgordo, NM

a. Explosion w/the power of 20,000 tons on TNT

• felt more than 120 miles away

b. J. Robert Oppenheimer (director): “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”

D. Propaganda and Politics

1. How did the US gov’t use propaganda and censorship to its advantage?

2. How were Republicans able to gain seats in the House and the Senate? How did they use their stronger position in the gov’t?

THE BATTLEFRONT, 1942-1944

Introduction

1. Outlook is bleak in 1942

2. US mobilization turned tide of war

3. Diplomacy followed the war

a. Unity of Allies diminished as Germany & Japan weaken

b. US, British, & Soviets sought wartime strategies & postwar which best suited its own national interests = postwar crisis

Liberating Europe

1. British & US agreed to concentrate on beating Germany 1st, but differed on where to attack

a. Facing 200 German divisions, Stalin pushed hard for a “second front” in France

• US Gen. George C. Marshall proposed invading France to relieve the Soviet Union’s fight in the east

b. Churchill insisted on the Mediterranean first

• didn’t want to repeat losses of trench warfare of WWI

• Churchill also wanted US to help British keep control of Suez Canal

c. Nov. 1942 – Churchill convinces FDR to attack Germans in North Africa – “Operation Torch”

• 100,000 US & British troops (led by Ike) landed in Morocco and Algeria – push east

• British, led by Gen. Montgomery, pushed west from Egypt to trap the Germans

• 250,000 Germans, led by “the Desert Fox” Rommel, surrendered in Tunisia despite Hitler’s orders to fight to the death

2. Eastern Front

a. Battle of Stalingrad

• Soviet forces saved Stalingrad, defended Moscow, and relieved the besieged Leningrad

• Soviet & Germans suffered more deaths in 4 months than US did in entire war

3. Stalin again pushed for a “second front”

a. Churchill & FDR agreed to invade Sicily in summer 1943

• Sicily conquered in one month

b. Italian military leaders deposed Mussolini & surrendered to Allies Sept. 8th

• elite Nazi divisions poured into Italy

• Allies take 8 months to go 150 miles to Rome

• still fighting in Northern Italy at end of war

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4. 1943 & 1944 – Allies turn the tide in Atlantic

a. Battle of Atlantic won by US science & industry as much as US navy (by end of 1943)

• radar systems & directions finders

• special torpedoes & depth charges

b. US & GB bomb German cities around the clock

• 100,000 killed in Hamburg

• 60,000 killed in Dresden

c. Soviets push Nazis out of Russia – mid-1944

• largest tank battle in history near Kursk

• Red Army gained strategic offensive

• Takes Poland, Romania & Bulgaria

• Josip Broz Tito liberated Yugoslavia

5. The Second Front

a. Operation Overlord led by Eisenhower

b. June 6, 1944 – “D-Day”

• largest amphibious invasion in history

• 600 warships, 10,000 airplanes, and 200,000 US, British & Canadian troops stormed 60 miles of beaches in Normandy

• Allies push inland in 6 weeks

• Liberate Paris, Belgium & Luxembourg

6. Battle of the Bulge

a. Hitler uses 250,000 reserves (Dec. 16) to stop US in the Forest of Ardennes (Belgium & Luxembourg)

b. 10 days later, Nazis drove a bulge 80 miles long & 50 miles deep into the Allied line

c. Allies stop counterattack on Christmas & push Germans to Rhine in a month

d. Hitler’s last gamble misses & he has no reserves and the way to Germany was now open

e. Battle of the Bulge took its toll

• 55,000 US killed or wounded

• 18,000 taken prisoner

The War in the Pacific

1. Battle of Coral Sea & Battle of Midway

a. US navy confronted Japanese (NE of Australia) the day after the Philippines fell to Japan

b. 1st naval battles fought entirely from aircraft carriers

• both sides lost 1 carrier & many planes

• stopped Japan’s advance on Australia

c. Japanese navy turned eastward toward Midway Island (most important US outpost between Hawaii & Japan)

• US Signal Corps had deciphered Japan’s naval code

• Admiral Chester Nimitz knew plans & locations of Japan’s ships

• decisive US victory

• US dive-bombers sank 4 major aircraft carriers

• destroyed several hundred planes

• stems tide of Japanese advances in Pacific

d. Japan – now trying to hold on to what they had previously won

2. Guadalcanal (in the Solomon Islands) Aug. 7, 1942

a. Marines came ashore to protect Australia from attack

• Face fierce resistance

• malaria, dysentery, fungus, etc. stall US troops for three months

b. Admiral Halsey’s fleet destroyed Japanese ships in area

• Takes additional 3 months to drive Japanese off island

• 25,000 Japanese killed

• A gruesome preview of island fighting to come

3. Fall - 1943 – two-pronged advance to Japan

a. General MacArthur (defender of the Philippines) had vowed “I shall return”

• leapfrogged from one strategic island to another north from Australia

b. Admiral Nimitz “island-hopped” across central Pacific

• captured key islands from which US aircraft could bomb Tokyo, Japan

4. Although Pacific operations remained secondary to beating Germany, US forces steadily increased

a. By late 1944 the US had 1.5 million marines & soldiers – as well as navy’s fastest & largest aircraft carriers in Pacific theater

b. MacArthur takes New Guinea & Manila

• Lost 28,000 men but that number = less than number killed in individual battles in Europe

c. Nimitz took strategic Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands, & the Marianas

• Tokyo was now within range of B-29’s & their 7 tons of bombs

d. By late 1944, Japanese cities were being destroyed & US navy destroyed remaining imperial fleet at battles of the Philippine Sea & Leyte Gulf

e. Japanese military leaders refused attempts by civilians in gov’t to negotiate peace

The Grand Alliance

1. FDR’s war goals

a. Total defeat of Axis powers w/least possible US deaths

b. Establish world order strong enough to preserve peace, open trade, & ensure nat’l self-determination in postwar

• FDR focused on the war & postponed postwar divisive matters

2. Churchill sought to retain GB’s imperial possessions & a balance of powers against USSR in Europe

3. Stalin wanted to weaken Germany permanently & create a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe to protect itself from future attacks from the west

• FDR relied on personal diplomacy to mediate conflicts

4. Conferences:

a. Casablanca (1943):

• FDR & Churchill agreed to invade Italy after North African campaign (rather than France)

• agreed to “unconditional surrender” to reduce Soviet mistrust of the West (which had grown due to a lack of a “2nd front”)

• also prevent Stalin from making a separate peace w/Hitler

b. Cairo (Nov. 1943):

• FDR, Churchill & Chiang Kai-shek (anti-communist head of China gov’t)

• FDR promised Chiang that Manchuria & Taiwan would be returned to China – if they fought Japan

• And a “free and independent Korea”

c. Tehran – 1943:

• 1st meeting between the Big Three

• set the invasion of France on the west coast instead of Mediterranean – Soviets could occupy Eastern Europe and control its destiny – Western allies do not see this because Russians are still fighting deep within their own territory

• divide Germany into zones of occupation & to impose reparations on the Reich

• Stalin promised to enter war w/Japan after Hitler’s defeat

The Election of 1944

1. Increased conservatism forced FDR to dump liberal Henry Wallace from ticket as VP

2. Wallace replaced by Harry S. Truman

a. Moderate from Missouri

b. Chaired subcommittee investigating waste in defense effort

3. GOP nominate moderate New York governor Thomas E. Dewey

4. FDR wins unprecedented 4th term

a. 432 electoral votes to 99

b. Only 53% of popular vote

c. FDR secretly suffering from hypertension and heart disease

V. WAR & AMERICAN SOCIETY

A. Read pp. 782-789 on your own. Pay special attention to and take copious notes on “War and Diversity” & “The Internment of Japanese-Americans.” Do additional research on the internment of Japanese-Canadians also. This is preparation for Paper 3.

VI. TRIUMPH & TRAGEDY, 1945

A. Introduction

1. 1945 brings:

a. The collapse of the Third Reich

b. The use of atomic bombs

c. A new US president

d. The beginning of the Cold War

B. The Yalta Conference

1. Yalta – February, 1945

a. Last meeting between FDR, Churchill & Stalin

• realities of military situation favored USSR

• The Red Army was just 50 miles from Berlin

• Soviets had already begun to organize Poland & Bulgaria as communist states

• US forces were still recovering from Battle of the Bulge

• US still faced fanatical resistance from Japanese

b. US Joint Chiefs of Staff insisted to FDR the Soviet assistance in Far East was worth almost any price

• invading Japan would cost 1 million US casualties Stalin has luxury of deciding when and where to enter the Pacific War

2. Yalta Agreement reflected new balance of power

a. Stalin promised to declare war on Japan “2 or 3 months” after German surrender

b. FDR & Churchill reneged on arrangement w/Jiang Jieshi (Cairo)

• promised Stalin concessions in Manchuria & territory lost in Russo-Japanese War

• Stalin recognized Jiang ruler of China & promised to persuade Mao Tse-Tung’s Chinese Communists to end civil war

• Stalin also dropped demand for $20 billion in reparations from Germany & permanent dissolution of the Reich

c. FDR asks for United Nations Conference in San Fran in April 1945 to establish permanent international organization for collective security

• Stalin agrees

d. Stalin adamant on Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe – especially Poland

• twice Poland was pathway for German troops into Russia – Stalin wasn’t going to let it happen again

• when Soviets took Warsaw (Jan. 1945), Polish communists were allowed to brutally subdue noncommunist Poles

e. FDR & Churchill refused to recognize communist Lublin regime

• They did accept Stalin’s vague pledge to reorganize gov’t to include noncommunist Poles & to allow free elections ASAP – to determine future gov’t of Poland

f. FDR is criticized for “giving away” E. Europe

• Soviets already controlled E. Europe

• only other option was war – while battling Hitler & Japan

C. Victory in Europe

1. The race to Berlin

a. Early March – US took Cologne & encircled Ruhr Valley (industrial heartland)

b. Churchill proposed rapid rush to Berlin to offset Soviet power in Europe

• Ike & FDR overruled plan – fearful of US casualties & to reassure Stalin (who may have signed separate peace w/Hitler)

c. US & Soviet troops meet at Elbe River, but Soviets were already in suburbs of Berlin

d. April 30 – Hitler commits suicide in bunker

• Soviets take Berlin May 2

• new gov’t surrendered May 8

1. US celebrates V-E Day – now turns attention to Japan

a. Last weeks of Europe war – Allies liberate remaining concentration camps

• Americans see newsreels of Auschwitz’s gas chambers, Dachau’s human ovens, Belsen’s stacked corpses

• 6 million Jews (& millions others) systematically murdered

b. April 12 – FDR has a stroke & dies

• Truman, unprepared, inherits most powerful nation & troubles w/USSR

A. A New President

1. Truman struggled to continue FDR’s policies

a. FDR didn’t familiarize him w/world affairs

b. Truman distrusted the Soviets and counted on US military power to maintain peace

c. He chastised Soviet ambassador Molotov – US tired of waiting for Soviets to live up to Yalta agreements

d. Truman’s actions:

• Wanted free-elections in Poland

• Threatened to cut off lend-lease aid

• reduced assistance to Soviets & stalled on grant $1billion reconstruction loan

e. Stalin strengthened domination of Eastern Europe and breaks Yalta agreement

f. UN Charter is framed, but it quickly emerges as a diplomatic battleground

2. Potsdam Conference

a. Potsdam, Germany (July, 1945)

• Truman, Stalin, Atlee

• Poland moved 100 miles west to accommodate USSR

• Germany divided into occupation zones

• each sought to preserve/enlarge own nation’s sphere of influence

• barely agreed to demilitarize Germany & punish war criminals

• all major divisive issues postponed for the Council of Foreign Ministers which was created to draft peace treaties for Germany’s allies

• w/diplomatic impasse - only military power remained to determine post-war world

B. The Atomic Bombs

1. Japan

a. Iwo Jima

• early 1945 – marines battle Japanese soldiers in tunnels, behind bunkers, etc.

• nearly 27,000 casualties

b. Okinawa

• Marines attack nearly impregnable forces head-on

• 83 days of land and sea battle

• 80,000 Japanese civilian casualties

• Nearly all Japanese troops (110,000) killed

• 40,000+ US casualties

1. What would assault on Japan cost?

a. Japan wouldn’t surrender despite naval blockade & daily bombings

• March 9-10 – Tokyo bombed: 16 square miles burned to the ground, 80,000 dead

• Japan has army of 2 million, reserves of 4 million, and 5000 kamikaze aircraft

• Invasion of mainland might cost 1 million Am. casualties

2. Hiroshima

a. Potsdam Declaration (July 25): warned Japan to surrender unconditionally by Aug. 3rd or face “prompt & utter destruction”

• Japan rejected P.D. July 28th

• Truman gives the go-ahead

b. August 6th – B-29 Enola Gay dropped uranium bomb on Hiroshima

• 300 degree centigrade fireball incinerated houses & pulverized people

• 60,000 killed instantly

• 70,000 killed later from radiation poisoning & burns

c. Stalin declared war on Japan (Aug. 8th)

3. Nagasaki

a. Aug. 9th – Bock’s Car drops plutonium bomb on Nagasaki

• 35,000+ killed instantly

• 60,000 injured

• City obliterated

b. August 14th – Japan accepted US terms of surrender

• emperor retained throne – but subordinate to US commander of occupation forces

• MacArthur rec’d formal surrender September 2, 1945 aboard USS Missouri

4. The questions begin:

a. Did the fighting have to end w/US resorting to dropping atomic weapons?

• some feel it was US racism toward Japanese

• yet, at the rate we were bombing German cities (killing civilians) – no doubt we would have dropped 1 there if they didn’t surrender

• others contend we could have dropped the bomb on an uninhabited island – this is rejected because we only have two bombs

b. Some argue that Japan was ready to surrender and a mainland invasion was unnecessary.

• We only know that as of July 28, Japan would not surrender

c. Most historians critical of Truman argue that he dropped the bomb to end the war before Stalin could enter and to intimidate Stalin into making concessions in E. Europe

• Truman – “If it explodes,…I’ll certainly have a hammer on those boys.”

d. Throughout the war American leaders had relied on technology to win the war with minimal loss of American life.

• Concept of “total war” was easily accommodated by new weapons

• No responsible official would advocate the loss of American servicemen to lessen the death and destruction in Japan over using a bomb that cost $2 billion of taxpayer money to develop

V. Conclusion

1. 20 million service men and women died (300,000+ Am.)

2. 25 million civilians perished

3. US vastly transformed

a. Increased presidential power

b. Unprecedented economic boom

c. Nat’l economic balance shifts from Northeast

d. Racial and social relations change – good and bad

4. To keep the Allies united and achieve victory, FDR gave in to Churchill early in the war and to Stalin late in the war

5. Truman uses the atomic bomb to save Am. Lives and gain leverage on USSR

6. Cold War begins – US plays a role in global affairs that seemed inconceivable just 5 years earlier

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