Academy of Radio and Television America and World War II Discussion

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World War II, 1941-1945, Part 2 7. The Cost of WW II in America The war was not fought on American soil. This mattered because it enabled American industry to remain intact; unlike the English and Russian wartime industry, which the Axis Powers continuously bombed and disrupted during the war. During the war the American federal bureaucracy almost quadrupled, largely because of the creation of new organizations to oversee the wartime economy. This assisted America to develop its greatest advantage during the war, which was the ability to produce material. Americans produced twice as fast as German workers and five times as fast as Japanese workers. What did they produce for the war ? he answer is everything. After 1942, Americans could produce 4 tanks to every 1 tank produced by Nazi Germany. During the war, Americans produced 300,000 planes, 53 million tons of shipping, 2.5 million trucks, and 50 million pairs of shoes; most of this was used to help supply the Allied Powers. The massive increase in production ended the Great Depression. 1 Money, loans, stock, and credit was created or put back into circulation to fund wartime production. Businesses and the American government were spending about $250 million dollars a day to fund WWII. (Much of this was money paid by the government to private companies.) American industry was able to produce quickly because of mas production and assembly line labor. By 1945, the government was spending $280 billion annually. The government gave out $186 billion in war bonds by 1945. War bonds were promises to repay private citizens, typically with interest, who volunteered to turn over their own funds to the government. (This means private citizens gave over large amounts of money to the government.) For the first time, the American government paid for private and academic scientific research and development during the war, for things like the atomic bomb. 8. Combat America’s entry into the war meant a massive increase in manpower on the side of the Allied Powers. 2 During 1942-1945, 16 million American men served in uniform. By November of 1942 thousands of American troops were in North Africa fighting alongside the English military against the German army. By July of 1943 the American army was fighting in Italy against the Germans, and other parts of Southern Europe. And of course, in the summer of 1944, the Americans, English, and French landed at the Normandy beaches after crossing the English Channel, to expel the German army from occupied France. Meanwhile all throughout these years Soviet Russia had recovered from the surprise attack staged by the German army in 1941. Russia’s “Red Army” was pushing steadily toward Germany from the east with millions of troops in uniform and tens of thousands of tanks and attack aircraft. By April of 1945, facing two massive forces from the west and the east (the Americans and Russia), Hitler committed suicide in an underground bunker in Berlin. A few days later the German high command signed an unconditional surrender bringing the war in Europe to an end. 3 In the Pacific Ocean, American Army troops and the Marines were moving from island to island toward Japan, fighting mercilessly along the way. At Iwo Jima 7,000 Americans and 19,000 Japanese troops were killed fighting for control of an island only a few square miles in size. In Okinawa 15,000 Americans and 90,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians were killed during April-June of 1945. The fighting in the Pacific ended when the United States dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japan, in the hope that America would not have to carry out an invasion of mainland Japan. After the two atomic bombs were dropped in August of 1945 Japan surrendered. This was the end of WW II. 9. Changes on the Home Front: Working Women and Manzanar The war caused many changes in American society. Some were positive and others were not. A positive change was that more women begin working in factories, private industry, and government bureaucracy, to replace male workers. 4 The number of women in the workforce grew by fifty percent, reaching 19.5 million in 1945. Because of the need for female workers, the stigma for working women receded. A negative change was the targeting of Japanese Americans for discrimination by the public and the government. The attack on Pearl Harbor only added fuel to long-term racist sentiments toward the Japanese; they were the only group target for “internment”. In early 1942 President Roosevelt signed executive order 9066. It empowered the government and local agencies to deport nearly 130,000 persons of Japanese descent (about half of who were US citizens) to holding areas in the desert on the west coast near California. The official justification was that all Japanese were a security threat because America was at war with Japan. They were often given little warning and had only a few days to leave their homes; the loss of ethnic Japanese businesses and homes was valued at $500 million. 5 Once deported they were kept in military camps in the California desert for the duration of the war; at the end most could return home. However they were held without trial and typically no legal defense. In 1973 American society gained greater awareness when Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston wrote a book titled Farewell to Manzanar. In it she told of her experiences being held in a military camp during World War II when she was a child, because her parents were Japanese. “Manzanar” was the name of the camp she was detained in during the war; there were hundreds like it in the California desert filled with ethnic Japanese detainees both American citizens and Japanese immigrants. 6 Responses (Due Monday May 4): What was isolationism in America? How did production help the United States win WW II? Name and describe in detail two changes that took place on the American home front during WW II? 7
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Running head: AMERICA AND WORLD WAR II

America and World War II
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AMERICA AND WORLD WAR II

America and World War II
What was isolationism in America?
Isolationism was the reluctance of America to join the European alliances during World
War II. It was a view that America had a different perspective on the world compared t...

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