World War II
Overview:
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe , as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated, as soldiers, war workers, or victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million casualities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
In this chapter you will read about the war's causes, its military history, and its consequences. You will learn about how American mobilized for war; the impact of the war on women and racial and ethnic minorities; the internment of Japanese Americans; and the dawn of the atomic age.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. A German counteroffensive, known as the Battle of the Bulge, in December failed, and Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences
1. World War II cost the United States a million casualties and nearly 400,000 deaths.
2. The war ended depression unemployment, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
3. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argue that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of Americans lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argue that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintain that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade and forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.
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Music Clips
America Calling (1942)
Composed by: Meredith Willson
Performed by: Fred Waring & his Pennsylvanians
Label: Decca 18485-B (1942)
Angels of Mercy (1941)
Composed by: Irving Berlin
Performed by: Glenn Miller & his Orchestra
Label: Bluebird B-11429-B (1941)
Back Home for Keeps (1945)
Composed by: Carmen Lombardo
Performed by: Guy Lombardo & his Royal Canadians
Label: Decca 18672-B (1945)
Cleanin' My Rifle (And Dreamin' of You) (1943)
Composed by: Allie Wrubel
Performed by: Lawrence Welk & his Orchestra
Label: Decca 4428-A (1943)
Cowards Over Pearl Harbor ( 1941)
Composed by: Fred Rose
Performed by: Denver Darling
Label: Decca 6008-A (1941)
Don't Worry Mom (1944)
Composed by: Harry Duncan & Paul William
Performed by: Sonny Dunham & his Orchestra
Label: Hit 7074 (1944)
G. I. Blues (1944)
Composed by: Floyd Tillman
Performed by: Floyd Tillman & his Favorite Playboys
Label: Decca 6104-A (1944)
Hello Mom (1942)
Composed by: Eddie Dunstedter
Performed by: Bing Crosby & West Coast AAF Training Center Orchestra
Label: Decca 4367-A (1942)
How About a Cheer for the Navy (1942)
(From This is the Army)
Composed by: Irving Berlin
Performed by: All Soldier Orchestra and Chorus
Label: Decca 18477B
I'm Getting Tired So I can Sleep (1942)
(From This is the Army)
Composed by: Irving Berlin
Performed by: Pvt. Stuart Churchill & Soldier Octet
Label: Decca 18475B
I've Been Drafted Now I'm Drafting You (1941)
Composed by: Lyle Moraine & Chuck Foster
Performed by: Kay Keyser & his Orchestra
Label: Columbia 36253
I Wish that I Could Hide Inside this Letter (1943)
Composed by: Nat Simon
Performed by: Lawrence Welk & his Orchestra
Label: Decca 4428-B (1943)
Lalapaluza Lu (1942)
Composed by: Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston
Performed by: Sammy Kaye & Glee Club
Label: Victor 27874-A (1942)
Little Bo Peep has Lost her Jeep (1942)
Composed by: Jerry Browne & Frank DeVol
Performed by: Horace Heidt & his Musical Knights
Label: Columbia 36568 (1942)
Ma! I Miss your Apple Pie (1941)
Composed by: Carmen Lombardo & John Jacob Loeb
Performed by: Guy Lombardo & his Royal Canadians
Label: Decca 3822-A
On the Old Assembly Line (1942)
Composed by: Ray Henderson
Performed by: Glenn Miller & his Orchestra
Label: Bluebird B-11480-A (1942)
Remember Hawaii (1941)
Composed by: Don Reid & Sammy Kaye
Performed by: Bing Crosby with Dick McIntire & his Harmony Hawaiians
Label: Decca 25025B/Album A461 (1942)
Saga of the Sad Sack (1945)
(from Strictly G. I.)
Composed by: I. Livingston & Hy Zaret
Performed by: Jules Munshin
Label: Asch 4554-A (1945)
Something for the Boys (1942)
Composed by: Cole Porter
Performed by: Paula Laurence with Orchestra and Male Chorus
Label: Decca 23363-A (1944)
Ten Days with Baby (1944)
Composed by: James Monaco
Performed by: Merry Macs Orchestra
Label: Decca 18630-A (1944)
There's a Blue Star Shining Bright (1943)
Composed by: Jack Foy, John Ravencroft, Ira Bastow, George Howard
Performed by: Red Foley
Label: Decca 6102-B (1944)
Wonder When My Baby's Coming Home (19420
Composed by: Kermit Goell & Arthur Kent
Performed by: Helen O'Connell with Jimmy Dorsey & his Orchestra
Label: Decca 18362-A
Timelines
Atomic Age Timeline
Holocaust Timeline
World War II Timeline