World War II in Europe and at home Exam 3

•Germans kill 2x more Americans than Japanese

•Despite late U.S. entry and fight against Soviets

Early U.S. war:

mostly at sea and in the air

•Battle of the Atlantic

•German submarine "wolf packs"

•U.S. "liberty ships"

•Strategic bombing of war facilities

•But German war production increases

•Firebombing of cities

•500,000 civilians killed, cities destroyed

•Stalin wants immediate land invasion

•FDR promises 1942 attack

•British want to attack from south

•North Africa landings, Nov. 1942

•Italy campaign begins 1943

•D-Day (June 1944): landings in Normandy (France)

•James Earl Rudder

•Invasion assists a largely Soviet war effort

•German surrender May 1945

•Hitler prioritizes killing of Jews

•SS murder squads ... cattle trains to death camps

•6 million Jews killed (2/3 of all European Jews)

•Immigration laws make it difficult to admit Jewish refugees in 1930s

•Ship St. Louis turned back with 937 refugees

•Death camps confirmed Nov. 1942

•Roosevelt decides victory is best way to end killing

•War Refugee Board helps about 200,000 Jews

•"The Good War"

•6 million women go to work outside home

...half for first time

•WASPs fly aircraft

•Nearly 1 million African-American service members

•Mostly non-combat service roles (exception, Tuskegee Airmen)

•"Double V"

•$330 billion in spending à economic boom

•U.S. economy doubles in size, 1940-45

Second Great Migration:

1.6 million African-Americans leave south

The home front

•Restoration of confidence after Depression

Atomic warfare

•Scientists warm of potential German nuclear weapons

•Germany secretly abandons program in 1942

•Manhattan Project

•Bombed tested July 1945

•Harry S. Truman

•Humble roots

•Vice president from 1944 on

U.S. military estimates Japan invasion will cost

•1 million U.S. lives (plus Japanese casualties)

•Hiroshima chosen to show destructive potential

•70,000 killed instantly, another 60,000 later

•U.S. knows some Japanese officials are considering surrender before bombing...Oppenheimer

...but not unconditional surrender

•Racism?

•Bomb was developed for use against Germany

•Intimidate Russia?

•U.S. desire for unconditional surrender

•Should second bomb (Nagasaki) have been dropped?

•Japanese assume Hiroshima is one-time attack

•"V-J Day": August 14, 1945

•End of war that claims 60 million lives