7.12 - WWII Mobilization/7.13 - WWII Military

War Production Board (WPB)

• Directed factories to produce war materials instead of consumer goods

• Example: car factories → tanks, planes

• Increased U.S. industrial power → key to Allied victory

Manhattan Project

• Secret program to develop the atomic bomb

• Led by scientists like J. Robert Oppenheimer

• Resulted in the first nuclear weapons used in war

Office of War Information (OWI)

• Controlled war messaging and propaganda

• Used posters, radio, films to:
  

  • Boost morale

  • Encourage support for the war

• Promoted unity and patriotism

Braceros

• Mexican laborers allowed to work in U.S. agriculture

• Helped solve labor shortages during the war

• Part of a temporary worker program between U.S. and Mexico

D-Day

• June 6, 1944

• Allied forces invaded Nazi-occupied France

• Turning point in Europe → led to defeat of Germany

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Battle of Midway

• U.S. defeated Japan’s navy

• Major turning point in the Pacific

• Shifted control toward the U.S.

Island Hopping

• U.S. strategy in the Pacific

• Captured key islands while skipping heavily defended ones

• Moved closer to Japan step-by-step

Atomic Bombs

• Dropped on Japan in 1945:
  

  • Hiroshima

  • Nagasaki

• Forced Japan to surrender → ended WWII

• Raised ethical debates about nuclear warfare