World War II – Chapter 24 Part 2: Fighting a Global War

After Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7 1941) the U.S. is at war with both Japan and Germany.
Fighting occurs on four main arenas:
- Africa
- Europe (West & Mediterranean)
- Eastern Europe/Russia (primarily Soviet–German)
- Asia-Pacific islands
First truly far-flung conflict in U.S. history; simultaneous campaigns demand unprecedented logistics.

Britain ➡️ provides Atlantic naval power & a launch‐pad (England) for the European invasion.
Soviet Union ➡️ largest army on earth; kills the majority of German troops who die in WWII.
- German casualties: far more on Eastern Front than Western.
U.S. ➡️ industrial “arsenal of democracy,” supplies itself + U.K. + USSR.
China, Australia, Canada, Free French, etc. add regional or specialized support.

June 22 1941: Operation Barbarossa
- Germany hurls $3{,}000{,}000$ men, $2{,}000$ tanks, $2{,}000$ aircraft into USSR.
Ideological war of extermination:
- Nazis view Slavs as sub-human “Native Americans of Europe;” plan to starve $30{,}000{,}000$ people.
- Jews singled out for immediate murder (Holocaust-by-bullets).
Initial German success ➡️ vast territorial gains, millions of Soviet POWs (90 % die in captivity).
Turning points:
- Stalingrad (Nov 42 – Feb 43): $300{,}000$ Axis surrender.
- Soviet counter-offensives 1943-45 roll Germans back to Berlin.
Soviet losses enormous: $25{,}000{,}000$ total dead (≈ $10{,}000{,}000$ soldiers + $15{,}000{,}000$ civilians).

1941: mass shootings (e.g.
- Babi Yar – 30{,}000 Jews killed outside Kyiv; children’s shoes later displayed at U.S. Holocaust Museum).
1942-44: shift to rail deportations & death camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc.).
- By camp openings, $3{,}000{,}000$ Jews already dead; final toll ≈ $6{,}000{,}000$ of Europe’s $9{,}000{,}000$ Jews.
Liberation: mostly by Red Army (Auschwitz). U.S. liberates camps inside Germany (e.g., Dachau, Apr 45).

Nov 42: Operation Torch — U.S. & U.K. land in Morocco/Algeria.
German Afrika Korps trapped in Tunisia; mass surrender spring 43 (many POWs shipped to Texas camps).

Operation Overlord (D-Day, June 6 44): 150 000 U.S., British, Canadian troops land at Normandy.
- By Aug 44: $2{,}000{,}000$ Allied troops in France; Paris liberated.
Germany now fighting on three land fronts + strategic bombing.

“Quantity has a quality all its own.”
- U.S. & USSR out-produce Axis in planes, tanks, ships.
- German inefficiency: 300 vehicle types, 150 plane types; insists on home production, kidnaps foreign labor.
Tank comparison:
- German Tiger: $70$ -ton, powerful but slow, scarce.
- Soviet T-34: $40$ -ton, simpler, mass-produced.
- U.S. Sherman: narrow profile (rail tunnels), fast, built by Chrysler assembly-line.

Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower = coalition manager, diplomat among prima-donna generals.
British caution vs. Soviet urgency vs. U.S. manpower—balanced until 1944 when U.S. dominance decisive.

Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill decide post-war Europe.
- Stalin’s dictum: “Whoever occupies a territory imposes his own social system.”
Result: de facto East–West division; seeds of Cold War.

April 30 45: Hitler suicide.
May 8 45: V-E Day.
- Soviet storm of Berlin costs $200{,}000$ Red Army dead—half U.S. total war deaths ( $400{,}000$ ).
Europe lies devastated; U.S. emerges largely unscarred.

Dec 41-June 42: Japan seizes
- Philippines, Dutch East Indies (oil), French Indochina, British Malaya/Burma, swath of Pacific reaching toward Hawaii & Aleutians.
Simultaneous Pearl Harbor strike intended to cripple U.S. fleet.

Goal: capture key islands, build airfields, bypass others, move bombers ever closer to Japan.
Essential pre-condition: destroy Japanese Navy.
- Battle of Midway (June 42): U.S. breaks code; sinks 4 Japanese carriers vs. 1 lost — strategic turning point.

Tarawa (Nov 43): 3 000 Japanese vs. 30 000 Marines; virtually all defenders die, 3 000 Marines killed.
Japanese doctrine: no surrender; fake surrenders, suicide grenades.
U.S. troops’ intense racial hatred (“Remember Pearl Harbor”):
- Trophy-taking: ears mailed home, skulls missing on 60 % of Saipan dead.
Iwo Jima (Feb-Mar 45): iconic flag-raising occurs early; 12 000 Japanese still beneath tunnels — battle lasts 6 weeks.

Late 44 onward: thousands of pilots volunteer for suicide crashes ("divine wind") into U.S. ships.
Sinks hundreds of vessels; psychological shock deepens U.S. resolve.

$150{,}000$ personnel, $2$ billion USD (1940s dollars).
Major sites:
- Los Alamos, NM (design/testing)
- Oak Ridge, TN (uranium enrichment via TVA power)
- Hanford/Richland, WA (plutonium, Columbia River dam)
July 16 45: Trinity test proves bomb works.

Aug 6 45: Hiroshima – $80{,}000$ instant dead, ≈ $80{,}000$ later deaths.
Aug 8 45: USSR invades Manchuria with $1{,}000{,}000$ troops ➡️ crushes Kwantung Army.
Aug 9 45: Nagasaki – $40{,}000$ instant, ≈ $40{,}000$ later.
Combined shocks force Emperor Hirohito to override military hard-liners; orders surrender.

Conventional fire-bombing of Tokyo (Mar 45): >100{,}000 deaths in one night; city flattened—visually similar to post-nuclear landscapes.
Moral context: civilian bombing already normalized by all major belligerents.

Europe devastated; U.S. & USSR emerge as superpowers ➡️ Cold War.
U.S. occupies Japan; begins demilitarization & democratization.
Holocaust memory rises in U.S. culture mainly in 1960s-70s (films, TV miniseries, museums).
Republican criticism of “Yalta sell-out” fuels post-war domestic politics (anti-communism).

Total war erodes “laws of war” — POW survival rates correlate with racial/ideological hatred.
Nazi, Soviet, Japanese regimes show extremes of state power vs. human life; raises post-war human-rights consciousness.
Industrial capacity + standardization often outweighs superior craftsmanship in modern mechanized war.