Unit 5.2: End of WWII

Destroyers for bases deal: when, who, what, why

• Before Lend Lease

• With britain

• Gave 50 boats from WWI

• We got 99 year leases on British possessions to build naval bases

• We built a wall of defense

Lend-Lease: who, what, how much $

• We lend Britain guns, ships, tanks, food, medicine etc so they can fight Hitler

• They return/replace them after the war

• Not just britain, any country vital to our national security

• Heavily debated- isolationists vs interventionists

  • America First Committee vs Committee to Defend America by Aiding Allies

• Passed easily

• Spent $54 bil mostly on british, but also soviets

Why Operation Barbarossa failed (6)

1. Russian soldiers fought with fanatical patriotism (love and fear)

2. Russia is huge → long supply lines, effective scorched earth

3. Huge population → endless soldiers

4. Soviet roads sucked

5. Weather: fall- lots of mud, winter- cold

6. Hitler blew his chance to take Russia

Pearl Harbor Attack: why, when, what, deaths, effect

• Japan doing conquesting, FDR moved pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor in case they come here

  • 2 choices: give up conquest or go to war with us

  • They think we are unprepared and wimpy and protected by Tripartite Pact

• Dec 7 1941

• “A day that will live in infamy”

• 350 planes off aircraft carriers hit Battleship Row by surprise

• USS Arizona just fueled, got hit 4x, very explosive (over 1k guys died)

• 2,403 Americans died

• 8 battleships hit, 300+ planes lost

• What we did wrong: planes/ships so close, ignored warnings, thought they would hit Philippines

• Dec 11: Germany + Italy declare war on US

What America needs to win the war (5)

1. Motivation: propaganda posters

2. Money: war bonds

3. Factories: built new ones, converted old ones

4. Resources: oil, iron, rubber, steel

   • Scrap metal drives, FDR fireside chat called for rubber donations, carpooling, rationing food/goods/gas (ration book w stamps)

5. Labor: women go to work, teens + AA’s took old women’s jobs

Bataan Death March: when, who, what, deaths

• Japan → Philippines after Pearl Harbor

• US + Filipino soldiers stuck on Bataan Peninsula

• ~Half soldiers surrender, taken on 12 day death march

• Horrible, cruel, gruesome deaths

• 70,000 deaths

Japanese-American internment: when, order, # people, Korematsu, afterwards

• Exec order 9066 signed in 1942

• West Coast: banned from public facilities, threatening sings, curfews (anger over Pearl Harbor and racism)

• Relocation camps inland and desolate

• Relocated 120,000 ppl for 3 years

• Propaganda video: they were happy/willing to leave, taming raw land, community

• Korematsu vs US: 6:3 upheld internment

• 1948: US paid $38 mil in reparations to JA’s

• 1988: every survivor got $20k and a formal apology

Why Japanese-Americans relocated (not Germans or Italians)? (7)

1. Japan attacked us

2. More Germans and Italians- too many to relocate

3. JA’s concentrated on West Coast

4. More racism/cultural differences

5. Lots of Germans/Italians had factory defense jobs

6. Germans/Italians had more political power

7. JA’s had been super successful- economic jealousy

D-Day: when, what, beaches, who, weather, goody bag

• Operation Overlord

• June 6 1944

• Largest sea invasion ever- thousands of ships

• General Eisenhower in charge

• Troops from Canada, US, and Britain

• 5 beaches: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword

• Delayed from the 5th bc of worst storm in 20 years

  • They have one day window of opportunity

  • German meteorologist doesn’t pick up the break

• Troops got a goody bag: chocolate, cigarettes, French $, motion sickness pills

• Hardest military move- out of sea, onto defended land

• Ike had 2 notes in his pocket: we succeeded it was soldier’s victory or we failed it was his fault

How we tricked the Germans into thinking we were going from Dover to Calais (7)

1. Shortest distance across the channel

2. Bombed Calais

3. Fake army in Dover (rubber/paper mache tanks)

4. Put General Patton in Dover

5. Sent balloons w reflectors across the channel to Calais, picked up on radar

6. Dropped dummy paratroopers in Calais

7. Had a double agent to feed them fake info

D-Day story: night before, # troops, boats, deaths, after

• Paratroopers landed the night before (101st airborne division)

  • Cricket noisemakers to find each other

  • Got control of roads, stop supplies

  • 23,000, estimated 75% would die, Ike gave them personal goodbye

• 156,000 Allied troops land in the morning on beaches

• Big boat → landing craft (Higgins boats) → wade in

  • Had 70 lbs backpacks, some drowned

• ⅗ beaches went smoothly, Omaha did not (2,500 died)

• Almost 5,000 Allies died, 4-9,000 Germans died

• Connected 5 beaches and landed more men + supplies

  • Over 1 mil guys by July 4

  • Over 500,000 tons of supplies

  • 171,000 vehicles

• We have control of the channel + sky

  • Bomb the Germans

  • Our stuff keeps coming

• Then we head inland and liberate Paris

Why Omaha was the bloodiest beach (5)

1. Machine gun fire from both ends (cove)

2. Best defended beach

3. Big rocky cliffs

4. Foggy → no air support

5. Amphibious tanks failed (went down at sea)

Why D-Day could have failed (2)

• German General Rommel wasn’t there

  • Back in Berlin for wife’s birthday

  • Best general, didn’t think anyone would come w the storm

• Only Hitler could move the tanks

  • He’s asleep

  • Rommel probably would’ve moved the tanks

D-Day cemetery: where, who, sculpture, garden

• Right over Omaha beach

• American troops who died on D Day or in the months afterwards

• 9,000+ guys

• France gave us the land, our gov maintains it

• Headstones were crosses or stars of david

• No grave organization (except brothers)- randomness is unifying

• Sculpture: Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves

• Garden of the Missing: for those w/o remains

Hitler commits suicide + VE Day: how, why, when

• Soviets take Berlin, rape 100,000 women

  • Hand to hand fighting

• April 30 Hitler kills himself and his wife

  • Two days earlier Mussolini killed

  • April 12 FDR dies

• May 8 1945: VE Day

  • All German troops surrendered

  • Lights on in London at night for the first time in 6 years

The Holocaust: who, acts against Jews, German ppl, goal

• Genocide of 6 million Jews

  • And other “undesirables”: LGBTQ, disabled, Romas

• Hitler Youth programs

• Acts against Jews:

  • Armbands → no citizenship → banned from public facilities → lost jobs, property, savings → moved to ghettos → “final solution” (mass relocation into concentration camps)

• Marginalize them → dehumanize them

• German people didn’t totally know, but knew enough and looked the other way

We didn’t help stop the Holocaust (4)

• Could have taken in more Jewish refugees

  • Immigration quotas in place (Natural Origins Act)

  • Didn’t want immigrants- the Depression, lot of anti-semitism, possible spies

  • Proposed bill to let in thousands of Jewish children voted down

• American companies were collaborating with Hitler

  • Henry Ford sold Hitler vehicles but refused to sell to Britain

  • Woolworths fired Jewish employees so they could continue operating in germany

• Should we have bombed camps/railroads to camps?

  • Kills innocent people but takes out gas chambers

  • 75% of Jews were dead before D Day

• “We need to focus on winning the war”

  • Focus on bombing military targets than humanitarian missions

FDR’s death: context, where, when

• April 12 1945

• In bad health: staggeringly high blood pressure, 2 pack a day smoker, skin is gray, lips are blue, hands shaking (only 63 years old)

• Goes to polio rehab place in Warm Springs, GA

• Having his portrait painted, about to go to BBQ

• Hand on back of head, claims terrific pain

• Has cerebral hemorrhage: blood vessel in your brain pops

• Couple hours later he’s dead

Telling Truman about FDR’s death: context, what’s he doing, conversation, bombs

• VP for less than 3 months (old VP having seances)

• Truman drinking and planning a poker game

• “Harry, the president’s dead” “Is there anything I can do for you?” “Is there anything we can do for you? You’re the one in trouble now”

• Out of loop, doesn’t know about Manhattan Project

Why Americans were so devastated when FDR died (4)

• Had been president for 12 years

  • Only prez many had known- can’t imagine someone else

  • The president

• Fear

  • Still at war, Hitler is alive

  • Truman: “I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me”

• Amazing personality

  • Optimistic + confident and can transfer it to others

  • kind/empathetic: from polio and wife

  • Calm in a crisis

  • Knows how to chill out: cocktail parties every night w/o talk of war/politics

• Grieved as if a family member had died

  • Fireside chats: nobody missed them, he felt close

  • Soldier who met him: “I felt as if I knew him, I felt as if he knew me, I felt as if he liked me”

  • Crying navy band accordion player: Graham Jackson, supposed to play at BBQ

  • Churchill cried announcing it to Parliament, Stalin put him in the newspaper + day of mourning

Battle of Iwo Jima: when, J fighting mentality, fighting, deaths

• Early ‘45

• Bloodiest battle in US marine corps history

• Japanese fighting mentality: fight to the death, dishonor to surrender, kill as many Americans as possible (10 per Japanese)

• We bombed a ton, they unleashed artillery and had tunnels 30 ft deep

  • Total bloodbath, end of day 1: 2,500 americans dead

• We win on Iwo Jima but it’s costly

  • 6,891 dead

  • 18,700 wounded

  • 1% of the Japanese left alive

Iwo Jima picture: story, photographer, good pic, DC statue

• 40 marines go to top and plant US flag attached to 20 ft water pipe

  • Hasn’t been another flag in Japan in 4,000 years

• 2-3 hours later they reenact it- some guy didn’t get to see it

• Joe Rosenthal takes pic and wins Pulitzer prize

  • Everyone has a part, motion, vista, focus on flag

• Statue in DC is unimpressive- guys piled on top of each other

Battle of Okinawa: when, fighting, closer to Japan

• Bloodiest battle in Pacific war

• Invade April 1: april fools and easter

• J’s kamikaze our ships- sink 32, killed over 4,000 navy men

• Big naval losses- 15,000 dead

• Japanese generals stabbed themselves with swords

• Poised to invade Japanese mainland- maybe lose ¼ mil guys

Manhattan project: who, where, $, time, goal

• Secret project to develop atomic bomb

• $2 bil, working for 3.5 years

• Need it before Hitler

• Robert Oppenheimer was lead physicist

• Los Alamos, NM

• First successful test: July 16 1945

Option to end WWII: Invade Japan

Pros: 1

Cons: 4

• Pros:

• Traditional way to win

• Cons:

• Could lose ¼ American lives + huge amount of Japanese

• Have to bomb first which will kill many

• Truman could be impeached if he had a weapon that could have ended the war but didn’t use it

• Won’t end the war quickly

Option to end WWII: bomb and blockade Japan

Pros: 1

Cons: 2

• Pros:

• They are weak and we could starve them into submission

• Cons:

• Will drag war out- why would they surrender if they didn’t after we firebombed Tokyo?

• Will kill tens of thousands of civilians

Option to end WWII: Do a demo bomb on uninhabited island or forewarned city

Pros: 2

Cons: 4

• Pros:

• Shock the J’s into surrender w/o killing many ppl

• Worth a try- can do something else after

• Cons:

• Probs wouldn’t be enough to get them to surrender

• Only have two a bombs

• What if it’s a dud? Boosts their morale

• Should shoot down our pilot or put our POWs there if we warn them

Option to end WWII: Use the A-Bomb on one or two industrial cities

Pros: 4

Cons: 4

• Pros:

• Will save ¼ American lives and more Japanese lives

• End the war quickly

• Military advisors + churchill say to use it + FDR funded it

• J’s killed millions of Chinese + did Bataan Death March

• Cons:

• Immoral and mar our reputation

• Could start nuclear arms race

• Thousands of innocent civilians will die

• Ike says it isn’t necessary bc Japan is weak

Hiroshima bomb: when, where, plane, destruction

• Aug 6 1945

• On military headquarters with supplies for army

• Enola Gay: plane that dropped Little Boy

• Nuke not active til plane took off- scientist inside told to kill himself

• Mushroom cloud seen from 360 miles

• Center of bomb = 100 million degrees

• 60% of city obliterated

• Truman politically unscathed

Nagasaki bomb: when, where, council vote

VJ Day: when, reaction (both Japanese and American)

• Aug 9 1945

• Not as much of a military target as Hiroshima

• So soon implies lots of bombs, we are not afraid

• Their war council was 3-3 on their decision

  • Emperor Hirohito breaks tie and surrenders

• People dropped to their knees in shame

• VJ day: Aug 14

  • Celebration outside White House

Sailor kissing the nurse: when, where, represent, photographer, story

• VJ Day: Aug 14 1945, Times Square

• Represents joy in America that war is over

• Taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt: followed the guy as he kissed every woman he saw, took the pic cus of contrasting clothes colors

• The two were strangers

• Women identified herself in the 70s

• 12 guys claimed to be the sailor, never verified

• Guy about to be shipped off to fight

• Guy was on a date with a girl and she watched as he kissed everyone

Japanese surrender: when, where, almost went wrong?, soldiers on islands after

• Sep 2 1945

• Tokyo Bay on USS Missourah

• Handed over ceremonial sword

• Lots of ships, important ppl from Allies there (including MacArthur)

• Few Japanese pilots wanted to Kamikaze the ship

  • Emperor's brother prevented it just in time

• Still Japanese soldiers on little islands- 10 - 15 years later when Americans approached they were there w guns, refused to surrender

After effects of the war (4)

• Enormous death toll

  • 50 mil from violence, 20 mil from disease/famine: 3% of population

  • Soviet Union + China had most deaths

  • More civilians died than soldiers

• Physical destruction in Europe

  • Bombs → cities, homes, rr’s, infrastructure, etc

• New world power structure

  • US and USSR: two new superpowers

  • Kiss isolationism goodbye

• Atomic age is here

  • Potential conflicts have much higher stakes

  • Totally different job as president