Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Chapter 5: The Four Freedoms: The Second World War 1941-1945 America'…

- - - - germany
        
        Hitler (leader of the Nazi party) became Führer of Germany in 1933
        
        Nazi Germany reversed TOV restrictions by rearming + remilitarising the Rhineland in 1936 & annexing Australia in 1938
        
        Nuremberg Laws introduced in Germany in 1935, decreed that Jews had no place in Nazi Germany, ans their systemic persecution
        
        May 1939: Hitler signed an alliance with Italy
        
        August 1939: Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR
        
        Germans launched a Blitzkrieg or 'lightning war' across European borders and by June 1940, much of Western Europe was under German + Italian control
      - italy
        
        Benito Mussolini the facist leader, invaded Ethiopia and Albania
      - spain
        
        nationalist General Franco overthrew the democratically elected Spanish government
      - france + britain
        
        initially adopted a policy of appeasement
        
        giving into Hitler's territorial claims of Sudetenland (German speaking region of Czechoslovakia) in March 1939
        
        later abandoned after the German invasion of Poland on September 1939; both declared war
        
        then Phoney War (months after Poland was defeated in September 1939 and before France was invaded in May 1940, during World War II. During this time, there was no big military operations in Europe.)
    - - Japan invaded northern China in July 1937 → sparked the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
      - January 1940 (after Japanese occupation of French Indochina), US abrogated commercial treaties with Japan + began putting sanctions on trade (on certain items (eg. chemicals, aircraft parts, scrap iron, copper)
      - on 26 july 1941, Roosevelt declared a freeze on all Japanese assets + by october, there was a total embargo on trade w/ Japan
        
        it would only be lifted if Japan agreed to withdraw from China + French Indochina
        
        Japan refused to comply
      - hungry for raw materials + fuel
      - government announced they were forming the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in August 1940
        
        wanted to drive Western imperialist nations from Asia + expand Japanese sphere of influence beyond Asia
        
        Japan wanted to increase its military + material power by drawing its raw materials from Asia
      - pearl harbour: when the
        european war became a world war
        
        Japan launched military attacks on British, Dutch, American targets across Asia
        
        7 December 1941: US naval base at Pearl Harbour was attacked by waves of Japanese bombers + fighters → 4 US battleships we re blown up/sunk, 11 other warships sunk/damaged , 188 aircraft destroyed in airfields
        
        but aircraft carriers (played big role in coming months) were at sea during the attack
        
        fuel depots survived
      - 8 December 1941: Singapore + Hong Kong (British colonies) were bombed
        
        Japanese troops invaded Malaya (modern-day mainland Malaysia)(British colony)
      - the Japanese moved relentlessly + gained a reputation for brutality by massacring civilians, medical staff and wounded in hospitals, used allied POW as forced labour (ignoring Geneva Convention) who suffered starvation, disease, torture
    - - US condemned Japan's war on China + its imperial ambitions
      - Japanese bombed USS Panay and killed 3 people
      - 1940-1941, US formalised aid to China + enabled it to purchase weapons
  - - - Pacifist movements spread across college campuses and within the wider community
      - America First Committee (isolationist lobby group) rallied against any American involvement in European conflict + attracted hundreds of thousands of supporters (eg. Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford)
    - - 1935 Neutrality Act banned sale of arms to countries at war + American travel on ships belonging to countries at war
      - Congress hoped this would keep US out of European war
      - introduced conscription (peacetime draft) in September 1940
    - - after war broke out in 1939, Roosevelt implemented plans to expand the US air force + asked Congress to increase federal defence budget
      - Roosevelt opposed fascism + worked to persuade Congress to approve the supply of desperately needed military equipment to Britain
        
        Congress agreed on the condition that they paid in cash + carried them on their own ships
        
        approved $7 billion to fund the first shipments to Europe
        
        Britain had no money → Roosevelt proposed to supply Britain under Lend-Lease scheme in March 1941, where payment would not be needed during the war
        
        German u-boats targeted the merchant ships carrying Lend-Lease supplies on their journey across the Atlantic
        
        April 1941: >650,000 tons of shipping were sunk by U-boats
        
        Roosevelt didn't act on Churchill's pleas to supply armed convoys to protect British ships
      - attacks on US/Britain
        
        German torpedo sank USS Reuben James and killed 115 crewmen; Roosevelt did not declare war on Germany
- - - - war outcome determined by the country that could produce the most war materials
      - WW2 was total war; every available weapon was used and all resources were intended towards the final outcome
      - US was advantageous because of its geography + history:
        
        thousands of km away from bomb raids
        
        history of innovation in manufacturing + production
      - managed by new federal agencies created by Roosevelt
        
        federal funds created new industrial centres and the west coast emerged as the centre of military industrial production
      - factories were offered incentives to convert their factories to war production
        
        automobile companies built tanks
        
        ribbon factories built parachutes
        
        typewriter manufacturers made machine guns
      - most defence contracts went to the largest corporations (eg. Ford, General Electric) who strengthened their economic dominance during the wartime
        
        A defense contractor (or security contractor) is a business organization or individual that provides products or services to a military or intelligence department of a government. Products typically include military or civilian aircraft, ships, vehicles, weaponry, and electronic systems.
    - - new technologies increased productivity by 25% during the war
      - 1941: one year to build a Liberty cargo ship
        1942: took two months
        1944: between one day and two weeks
      - new major developments in synthetics, aircraft and electronics were developed
      - US hourly output was 2x Germany and 5x Japan
      - quality of American production was sometimes lower; Sherman tanks were nicknamed 'Ronsons' after the cigarette lighter - it would alight when hit
      - 1944: US produced 40% of world's arms
    - - unemployment:
        1940: 8 million workers (15% of labour force) were unemployed
        1942: fell to just 5%
        1943: civilian employment had risen by 6 million + armed forces employed 9 million people
        1944: 1%
      - employers were looking for new people; not turning them away
    - - under Bracero program (1942-1964), thousands of Mexicans were permitted to cross the border to work in temporary domestic + agricultural jobs in the US
      - no. of workers employed by federal government rose during the war from 1 to 4 million → helped to lower unemployment rate
      - things that increased with full employment:
        
        living standards
        
        wages
        
        personal savings
        
        consumer spending
        
        before war: 4 million paid income tax
        after war: 40 million paid
    - - US farmers supplied food to Britain, Soviet Union, China as part of the Lend-Lease 'Food for Freedom' effort
      - farm produced increased by 17%
        farm prices & incomes doubled
        because of:
        technology + mechanisation increased yields
        no major droughts/floods to destroy crops during the war
        
        also solidified existing trends: agricultural employment declined as a result of more commercial and mechanised
    - - with work came optimism, rising expectation, confidence that was lost before the Depression
      - experience of US civilians was different to that of civilians in other countries who faced:
        
        starvation
        
        terror
        
        loss of political freedom
        
        under the threat of invasion
        
        endured bombing raids
        
        severe rationing of food + fuel
        
        falling standards of living
  - - - Japanese had long been subject to anti-Asian prejudice in California
      - Japanese Americans dominated the vegetable farming industry
      - suggestions that they were spying for the enemy by signalling for the enemy
    - - mass evacuations on the west coast began on March 1942
      - by September, 100 000 of 127 000 Japanese Americans (many of whom were 2nd-generation Americans) had been removed from the west-coast and placed in relocation camps
      - the men, women and children detained were housed in military-style barracks that were surrounded by barbed wire in remote parts of the Midwest
      - primitive living conditions
      - high level of depression among internees
      - several thousands renounced their US citizenship
      - riots occurred in a number of camps
      - in Hawaii, where Japanese Americans made up 40% of the population, there was no attempt at detention
      - treatment of Japanese Americans ≠ other enemy aliens (incl. 599,000 Italians, 264,000 Germans) who were subject to restrictions on movement + possession of radios/cameras, rarely interned
      - strong racial element to treatment of Japanese Americans
        
        fight vs Italians/Germans was against an evil ideology, Japan was seen as a race war
        
        depicted in propaganda in popular press as:
        
        rats
        
        vampires
        
        dogs
        
        gorillas
        
        reports of japanese atrocities against POWs fuelled American hatred
  - - - the US followed a strategy of focusing on the European war as its first priority
      - american troops fought alongside the British, Free French, Poles in North African desert
      - operation overlord (d-day): the largest sea-launched military operation in history
        
        6 June 1944
        
        the major involvement of US troops in Europe, when Allies landed ~156,000 troops on Normandy beaches in France
        
        under command of American General Dwight Eisenhower, another million men would follow the initial invasion force
        
        after months of fierce fighting, the Germans retreated east + Allies pushed forward → liberating Paris in August
        
        4 million American ground troops + airforce personnel in Britain when d-day commenced
        
        american forces were able to access 20kg of supplies per day, compared to British soldiers (9kg) and Germans (2kg)
        
        trucks, munitions, weaponry, petrol were stockpiled in Britain → then transported to frontline
      - allies pushed towards Germany + faced stiff opposition
        
        aircraft attacked oil + transportation targets that helped cripple Germany's war production + by March 1945, the German economy was on the verge of collapse
        
        mass bombing raids on civilians were aimed at breaking morale
      - on the eastern front, USSR fought a series of crucial campaigns against the Nazis from mid-1941 onwards
        
        the Soviets defeated the German army at Stalingrad in January 1943, with a loss of 800,000 Germans and 1.2 million Russians
        
        Lend-Lease supplies of munitions + other materials valued at $11.3 billion pushed the Soviets + by 2 April 1945, the Russians reached Berlin after a series of bloody battles
        
        25% munitions
        
        75% of industrial equipment/raw materials/food
        
        The Lend-Lease policy was a program under which the US supplied the UK, Free France, Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945.
    - - battle of coral sea
        
        US + Australian Navy halted + forced Japan to turn back its fleet in the battle of Port Moresby in May 1942
        
        first naval battle fought entirely with aircraft
      - battle of midway
        
        US sank 4 Japanese aircraft carriers + put an end to Japan's naval superiority
        
        these naval victories allowed American + allies to launch a campaign to retake territories captured by Japanese
      - one of the largest Pacific battles at Okinawa
        
        12 days of hand-to-hand fighting to secure 3km of land
        
        almost every US captured pow was killed after surrender
        
        it ended on 22 June 1945 after 82 days
        
        only 7,000 of 77,000 troops survived + 142,089 Okinawan civilians were killed
        
        7613 US deaths, 65,000 were wounded
      - Japan sent 355 Kamikaze (suicide pilots) to destroy aircraft carriers + persuaded hundreds of civilians to commit mass suicide by jumping off the cliffs/blowing themselves up with hand grenades to avoid capture by the Americans
      - Roosevelt declared war on Japan on 8 December: 'The American people and their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.'
      - 11 December, Germany declared war on US, bringing US into European war
      - 22 December, the Japanese landed in the Philippines where General Douglas commanded the American forces
        
        heavy fighting between Japanese invaders vs US and Philippines took place
        
        6 May, the Americans surrendered
        
        captured US + Filipino soldiers were sent to Japanese POW camps, where they were used for forced labour and suffered atrocities
        
        15 February 1942, Singapore surrendered and 85,000-120000 allied soldiers were made into POW
      - japan secured naval superiority + by May 1942, most of South-East Asia and large areas of the Pacific were under Japanese control
  - - - images revealing mental breakdowns were withheld
    - - this failed to reveal the boredom, mental breakdown, alcohol abuse, equipment failure, outbreaks of violence between GIs
  - - - NAACP said that many African Americans were denied these freedoms on the basis of race: there was 'sympathy for the brutality, blood, death among the peoples of Europe' and demands for 'democracy in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Michigan, in the District of Colombia, in the Senate of the United States'
      - Roosevelt argued that Americans were fighting for the 4 freedoms
      - 1940: 3/4 black Americans lived in rural areas
      - 1/10 received no schooling
      - earned 39% of the amount that whites made
      - by the end of the Depression, 90% lived below the poverty line
      - 5% of AAs in the South who were eligible to vote actually voted because of physical violence and intimidation that disqualified them from registering
      - before the war: black workers were excluded from participating in the economic boom that came from the war
        
        industries refused to employ AAs, unions wouldn't accept their membership
        
        in the army, black soldiers were segregated and limited to transport and quartermaster duties in all-black units led by white officers
        
        navy would only let them work in the mess or as stewards
        
        air force and marines would not accept black recruits
        
        military blood banks were segregated throughout the war, black nurses were only allowed to allowed to treat black soldiers and German POWs
        
        in Southern military bases, black soldiers were subject to Jim Crow laws
        
        1939: AA made up >2% of the military
      - march on washington
        
        Asa Philip Randolph was the head of all-black union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a popular leader
        
        Randolph launched a campaign for black rights, calling to desegregate military + defence industry
        
        he + other black activists met w/ Roosevelt in an attempt to persuade him to stop discrimination against African Americans
        
        a meeting Roosevelt, Randolph was shocked by an announcement that two days later that Roosevelt’s War Department would not ‘intermingle coloured and white'
        
        Randolph planned the March on Washington, an all-black
        
        Roosevelt asked for him to cancel it (especially since it was in the nation's capital. The march was scheduled for 1 July 1941
        
        threat of 100000 black men and women marching
        
        on 25th June, signed Executive Order 8802, outlawing discrimination on the basis of race, creed, colour or national origin in the defence contracts
        
        nations capital galvanised Roosevelt into action. He tried to persuade Randolph to cancel the
        
        Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) established to investigate complaints.
        
        first time since Reconstruction that the federal government had openly made a commitment to racial equality
        
        celebrated in black communities
        
        AA benefited: 2 million gaining employment in defence industry and 200,000 in the federal public service
        
        the law itself was not enough to uproot discrimination in the community
        
        Roosevelt was fearful of a backlash from the Southern Democrats, was muted in his support for black rights.
        
        the double V for victory
        
        the success of March to Washington prompted other civil rights campaigns
        
        The Pittsburgh Courier launched the double V for victory campaign, that was supported by NAACP, Congress of Racial Equality, Urban League
        
        NAACP membership grew from 50,000 in 1940 to 500,000 in 1946
        
        highlighted that AAs were fighting fascism abroad and against discrimination at home and aimed to expose the hypocrisy of the government
- - - - American bomber the Enola Gay, a single atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima which was home to 280,000 civilians + 40,000 soldiers
      - an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people were killed immediately
      - the blast destroyed 62,000 of the 90,000 buildings
      - within a year, over 140,000 died from radiation poisioning
      - 2 days after Hiroshima, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan + marched into Manchuria
    - - support
        
        it saved lives (both Japanese + Allied) from a lengthy + continued ground war
        
        the USSR had come into the war + the US wanted to show its nuclear power, take over a defeated Japan + get the USSR to retreat from South-East Asia
      - opposition
        
        war crime against unharmed civilians
        
        such of such a powerful weapon was unethical
        
        Japan would have surrendered before an Allied invasion was necessary
        
        surrender terms were already being discussed when the first bomb was discussed
        
        racial element: reflected America's contempt for the Japanese
    - - why?
        
        the Americans demanded unconditional surrender, but Japan's supreme War Council was divided
      - killed 40,000 immediately
      - final death toll was 48,857
- - - - birth rate in 1943 reached its highest level since 1927; women married earlier + average of three children
- - - - not symbolic of all women: only 10% of women worked in defence industry
      - riveting was a highly skilled trade that employers were reluctant to train women in + their employment was seen as being only for the duration of the war
        
        women were more likely to take part in assembly lines/clerical workers
        
        although women participated in a wider range of jobs, gender roles were not enormously challenged in the long term
      - Rosie the Riveter became a potent symbol of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s + represented women’s strength + determination
- - - - the migration was quick + the government had to build accommodation to house these workers
  - - - no. of farms fell and population of cities + metropolian areas grew → US became increasingly urbanised