7.12 & 7.13: The Second World War
7.12: Explain how and why U.S. participation in World War II transformed American society.
7.13: Explain the causes and effects of the victory of the United States and its allies over the Axis powers.
In the last set of notes, we went over the events of the interwar period between World War I and World War II. Now, we’re going to talk about the mobilization and the events of World War II.
Mobilization
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan and entered World War II. Similar to World War I, it was a total war, meaning that countries involved used all aspects of their society, both military and civilian, in order to fight. In order to prepare for this war, the United States increased federal spending by more than 1,000%. This ended the Great Depression and helped boost industrial manufacturing, increasing the country's GDP by 15%. President Roosevelt also established two agencies, the War Production Board and the Office of War Mobilization, to assist in the war effort. The government also produced many posters that portrayed women as strong and important in order to encourage women to work in factories to replace the men that were now being drafted and sent to war. Minorities were also targeted to help in the war. Roughly one million black Americans joined the military during this period. Many joined in hopes that it would help end racism in the United States. The NAACP promoted the Double V Campaign, which aimed to both win the war and use it to win against racism in the United States. Despite their participation in the military however, black soldiers were still segregated from white soldiers in the army. However, some regiments, such as the Tuskegee Airmen, gained recognition for their contributions and bravery during the war.
Many Mexican-Americans joined the war as well, roughly 300,000 of them. However, all of the people leaving to fight led to a shortage of agricultural labor in the United States. As a result, the Bracero Program was established in 1942. This program allowed Mexican farm workers to enter the U.S. and help with farming without needing to go through the immigration process. But when many of these workers arrived, they faced discrimination and mistreatment from the United States.
For the Native Americans, some served as Navajo Code Talkers who acted as communication experts to encrypt messages for the U.S. and avoid decoding by the enemies.
In 1940, the Selective Service Act was passed, a year before the U.S. entered the war, which became the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history. By the end of the war, this led to roughly 15 million Americans serving in the war in total.
Japanese-Americans and Internment Camps
However, there was one group of people who were heavily discriminated against in the United States during the war: Japanese-Americans. Although they were American citizens, many in the United States feared that they were spying on the country for Japan. As a result, in 1942, FDR passed Executive Order 9066. This started the Japanese Relocation, in which over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were relocated to internment camps over the course of the war, including Japanese families and children who were born on American soil. Many families had their homes and land confiscated as well. In 1944, one of these Japanese-Americans sued the country because of this and this led to the Supreme Court case Korematsu v. The United States. The Supreme Court ended up ruling against Korematsu, ruling that the Japanese Relocation was constitutional because it was a “martial necessity arising from the danger of espionage and sabotage”. In the end, the relocation of Japanese-Americans continued until the end of the war.
The Holocaust
As the Allied soldiers took more and more territory, especially from Germany, they began discovering something horrifying. Throughout the war, the Germans had been gathering Jewish people inside concentration camps throughout Germany and either forcing them to do labor or killing them in gas chambers. This tragedy became known as the Holocaust. The discovery of the events increased American and European morale in fighting the war and stopping Germany. In the end, roughly six million Jews were killed in these camps.
The Pacific Theater
So now let’s move on to the actual fighting of the war. The main question here is how did the United States and the Allied Powers win the war? Basically, at first, most of the American effort was spent focusing on the Pacific Theater of the war, because Japan was the one who attacked the United States first. However, in the first few months of this war, Japan was the one winning against the United States because Japan had already been taking over territory from other countries for a few years at this point, and therefore was already ready to fight. But after a few months, the United States caught up in preparation and the war in the Pacific Ocean started turning more in their favor. After the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, the United States was able to capture several key islands in the Pacific and began launching an island-hopping campaign across the ocean towards the Japanese mainland.
The European Theater
Americans saw the fight in Europe as a fight for the survival of democracy and freedom against fascism. As a result, many Americans were invested in how the war in Europe played out. Additionally, after France fell in 1940 and was turned into a puppet government controlled by Germany, the only Allied Powers in Europe remaining were Britain and Russia. And Russia was the only one defending against Germany on the European mainland. So in November 1943, Stalin (leader of the Soviet Union), Churchill (prime minister of Britain), and Roosevelt met to plan the opening of a second front in Europe against Germany. This became known as the D-Day Invasion and on June 6th, 1944, the invasion began on the Normandy beaches of northern France. This became the largest amphibious invasion in world history. On that day alone, 200,000 Allied soldiers landed and within the following weeks, more than a million more followed. Two months later, in August, Paris was liberated from Germany and the Allies continued pushing towards Berlin.
Victory in Europe
After France was liberated, the Allies began surrounding Germany on all sides, with Britain and the United States on the west and the Soviet Union on the east. In the winter between 1944 and 1945, Hitler launched a last major assault against the Allies in the Battle of the Bulge. This was an attempt to break through the front lines in the Ardennes region in Belgium and encircle the Allies there, trapping them. However, despite thousands dying on both sides, the attack failed. Soon after, an invasion of Germany itself was launched. soon after, an invasion of Germany itself was launched. On April 30th, 1945, Hitler took his own life. A week later, Germany surrendered on May 7th. This day became known as V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day.
Victory in Japan
As for Japan, the United States had started an island-hopping campaign after capturing the island of Midway. This was a campaign to capture islands across the Pacific Ocean and cut off Japanese supply lines. By 1945, this plan was successful and the United States began preparing for a full attack on the Japanese mainland. However, in April 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Vice President Harry Truman then became the 33rd President. It was then that he was informed about the Manhattan Project, a secret research project that had created nuclear bombs with the strength of 15 kilotons of dynamite.
Months later, Truman authorized the use of these bombs against Japan. On August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. Three days later, another was dropped on Nagasaki. This led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people and in the days, weeks, and years later, many more would die from injuries, burns, and radiation poisoning. In total, an estimated 130,000 to 230,000 people died from these bombs. A month later, on September 2, 1945, Japan officially surrendered, marking the end of World War II, which is celebrated as V-J Day or Victory in Japan Day.
