National
and International Shifts: Pre-US Entry, 1941-1943, and 1944-1945
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You can use this resource to understand the
study guide items about what is different in the 3 periods above. Footnotes
offer details. Abbreviations: FDR =
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Allies =
Britain (Br), France (Fr), others, and eventually the United States (US) Axis = Germany (Ger), Italy,
Japan 1st Axis, 2nd Ally = Russia (Ru) – AKA USSR
Contents:
Interconnected Events in the Period from Just Before
World War II to the US War Declaration
Major Assets of the Allies Once the US and Russia Join
Britain
Interconnected Events in the Earlier
Years of World War II: 1941 -1943
Interconnected Events in the Later
Years of World War II: 1944 -1945
Groups and Institutions Arising from
this War
Notice: What the US did to help the Allies (including Ru when it joins them)
before the US gets in the war. Notice: What gets the US in the war?
|
Date |
Presidential
Election/Event |
US
Official -Unofficial Actions |
Allies |
Axis |
US War Actions |
Issue/Organization Development |
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1920s-30s |
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1940-05 |
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Committee to Defend |
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1940-06 |
Atomic
bomb and Einstein
connection[1] |
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Ger
conquers Fr, occupies the North, creates Vichy (puppet gov.) in South |
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1940-08 to 10 |
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Selective Service Act |
Battle of Britain–Constant Nazi
attack but the British held. It was “their finest hour” (Churchill’s words.) |
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Destroyers for Bases Agreement[2] |
America First Committee –
example of isolationism |
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1940-11 |
Wendell
Willkie vs. F. D. Roosevelt |
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1940-12 |
Fireside
chat on US as “the great
arsenal of democracy” |
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Japan:
Embargo–“unfriendly act.” Ger: Protest over US aid to Br |
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1941-01 |
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Threatened DC black march[3] |
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1941-03 |
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Lend-Lease Bill[4] |
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1941-04 |
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Rationing
starts |
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1941-06 |
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Ger
invades Ru. |
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Lend-Lease
to Ru |
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FDR: stops march[5] |
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1941-12 |
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Japan: Takes many areas[6] |
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1941-12-07 |
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Japan: Pearl Harbor |
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1941-12-11 |
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US declares war on Japan |
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Ger,
Italy: Declare war on US |
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Rosie the Riveter- (6 M women). Tuskegee Airmen |
·
Br – sea power – Attacked by Hitler in
Battle of Britain - August to October, 1940. It was alone.
·
Ru – manpower - They faced tremendous loses
and continued to fight. Stalin’s policy was people fought or they were
killed. – Attacked by Hitler, June 1941;
FDR extends Lend-Lease to Russia
·
US – “arsenal of democracy” (ability to
manufacture and grow food incredibly fast—all that efficiency emphasis of the
Progressive Era) – Attacked by Japanese, December 1941 and thus finally enters
the war.
Notice: The Allies are going after weaker targets in Europe than the
German military and in the Pacific than every island the Japanese conquered. Notice: The GI Bill avoids the disaster
of World War I. If you do not remember the disaster, click here and look for the word vet.
|
Date |
Presidential
Election/Event |
US
Official -Unofficial Actions |
Allies |
Axis |
US War Actions |
Issue/Organization Development |
|
1942 |
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Detroit race riots; CORE
(Congress of Racial Equality) forms |
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1942-02 |
Exec. Order 9066 – Relocation[7] |
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1942-04 |
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Draft
starts |
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1942-11 |
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Allies
N. Africa campaign – victory against Vichy |
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1943-02 |
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Ru:
Victory at Stalingrad |
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US: Guadalcanal[8]
secured – 6 months (New Guinea), |
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“leapfrog” campaign starts[9] |
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1943-06 |
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Mobs
against Mexican Americans (CA) |
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1943-07-08 |
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Sicily
victory; enter into N. Italy; Mussolini flees |
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1944-03 |
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GI Bill – avoids
the disaster of WWI |
Notice: Only after the events
of 1941-1943 do the Allies fight the German Army. Notice: the Cold War (undeclared war that is frequently war by
proxy) that rises out of World War II.
|
Date |
Presidential
Election/Event |
Allies |
Axis |
US War Actions |
Issue/Organization Development |
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1944-06 |
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Allies: Normandy- D.D. Eisenhower[10] |
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1944-07 |
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Port Chicago, CA – 250 black
sailors killed |
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1944-12 |
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US/Br: Battle of Bulge – stop German
counter 77K US casualties |
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1945-02 |
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US:
Philippines victory – 7 months |
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US public learns of the Holocaust-“Final Solution.” Caution: Some of you may not want to read this footnote.[11]
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Yalta[12]
Accords – UN, free elections |
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1945-03 |
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US:
Iwo Jima – victory – 2 months |
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1945-04 |
FDR
dead; Harry S Truman
President |
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Ger:
Suicide of Hitler |
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Foreign policy trends - Cold War begins - Presidential power up (Note that the Cold War makes foreign policy/treat of war a constant
compared to the roles of Congress and the states.) |
|
1945-04-06 |
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United Nations Conference –
draft charter |
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Nation trends: |
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1945-05 |
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Allies:
Berlin falls (May 2), Ger surrenders (May 7), V-E (May 8) |
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- American workers’ pay increases (We have no completion in the
world.) |
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1945-06 |
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German/Berlin occupation zones est.; Ru.,
US, Fr, Br[13] |
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- Racism, as a foreign policy issue. (Hitler and later Stalin can
criticize us for our racism.) |
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1945-07 |
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Potsdam
Conference – agree to trials
(Nuremberg with equivalent trials in Japan) |
Japan: Rejects unconditional surrender |
US:
Successful atomic bomb
test (Jul. 17) |
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1945-08 |
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US: Hiroshima, atomic bomb |
Emperor Hirohito encourages surrender.
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US alone: occupies Japan |
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Notice: Each of the groups and institutions, especially how they change
by the last time period.
|
Group/Institution |
World War II to US War Declaration |
World War II, early (1941-1943) |
World War II, late (1944-1945+) |
|
African Americans |
Threatened black march on Washington[14] FDR:
action to avoid the march[15] |
Tuskegee Airmen (remember
Tuskegee from Unit 1) |
Tuskegee Airmen (Tip: Tuskegee was
the trade school associated with Booker T. Washington) Racism, as a foreign policy issue. (Hitler and later Stalin can
criticize us for our racism.) |
|
Policy to reduce national
divisions |
Example:
Rationing starts for everyone—rich and poor alike |
Continues |
Continues until the shift to
peacetime economy |
|
Racism in general |
Race
riots at the end of World War I Segregation
in the South |
Exec. Order 9066 – Relocation[16] 1943: attacks on Mexican
Americans |
Racism, as a foreign policy
issue. (Hitler and later Stalin can criticize us for our racism.) |
|
Veterans |
-- |
-- |
GI Bill—including
education, loans for houses, medical care (Post 1945: part of creation of
middle class.) |
|
United Nations |
-- |
-- |
Notice: In a world where colonies (frequently of varied races) will be breaking away
from the Br, Fr, and others who held them, these colonies will become nations. When they
join the General Assembly, that world will be different. Think about it. |
|
Women |
-- |
Rosie the Riveter- (6 M
women) |
Continues to end of war and then ceases abruptly |
|
Workers in factories and on
farms |
Prior
increase in unionism in industrial unions |
Continued employment during the
war |
Selling to a defeated world that could no longer manufacture or grow
food so we held the markets. (Post 1945: part of creation of
middle class.) |
|
US Trait |
World War I and Initial Post War |
1920s |
1930s |
|
Initially in these slogans “the war to end war”
and the “war to make the world safe for democracy” |
Disillusion about the war,
death rate/ damage Distrust over US private banks’ loans
to Allies, push for war, and ugly in realities Europe, including Ger and so-called
“war guilt” clause and paying
reparations |
Congress passes Neutrality Acts
to prevent bankers’ involvement in growing international wars (Sometimes called “cash and
carry.” These policies applied to purchases by any nation at war)[17] |
|
|
Vets returning from war could not find jobs.[18]
Additional post war problems: 1st
Red Scare, bombings, race riots |
Illusion of prosperity but
fundamentals were not sound (Examples: market saturation, stock market speculation, disparity
in wages, profits and dividends) |
Hoover: Crash and beginning of Great Depression. FDR:
New Deal, Great Depression continues |
|
|
Treaties, but the treaty ending World War I led
to problems in 1920s and 1930s New: League of Nations |
League of Nations, but the US does not: - join the League
of Nations - sign the treaty ending World
War I. |
League of Nation cannot
deal with the rising conflicts Hoover: All the US can do is non-recognition of
Japan’s China’s takeover of Manchuria. |
|
Date |
US |
Allies |
Axis |
|
1939-03 |
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Ger: Makes demands on Poles (Mar. 23) |
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Br, Fr: Promise aid to Poles (Mar. 31) |
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1939-04 |
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Italy: Invades Albania (Apr. 7) |
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US/FDR:
to Hitler and Mussolini asking assurances (Apr. 15) |
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1939-05 |
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Ger/Italy: Military alliance (May 22) |
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1939-08 |
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Ger/Ru:
Non-aggression pact (Aug. 23) |
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US/FDR:
to Poles, Hitler, Italy’s King Victor Emmanuel for negotiation (Aug. 24) |
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Poles:
Accept conciliation. No response so mobilize (Aug. 31) |
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1939-09 |
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Ger: Invades Poland (Sept. 1) |
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Br/Fr: declare war on Ger (Sept. 1) |
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US: Declares neutrality (Sept. 3) |
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Ru: Invades Poland (Sept. 17) |
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Ger/Ru:
Partition Poland (Sept. 18) |
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1939-11 |
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Ru: Invades Finland. Complete (Mar.
1940) |
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1940-04 |
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Ger: Invades Denmark, Norway |
|
1940-05 |
|
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Ger: Invades The Netherlands, Belgium
(May 10). Fall by June. |
|
Date |
Rise of
Axis Powers |
|
1931-09 |
Japan: Manchurian invasion |
|
1933-01 |
Germany: Hitler, Chancellor |
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1935-05 |
Italy: Invades Ethiopia |
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1936 |
Germany: Reoccupies the
Rhineland |
|
Germany, Italy: Mutual defense
pact |
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Germany, Japan: Mutual defense
pact |
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Spanish Civil War (Germany and
Italy practice warfare methods as allies of F. Franco |
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1937-12 |
Japan: Bombs US Panay in
Yangtze River in China |
|
Japan: As part of attacks on
China (with high Chinese dead counts), fall of the city of Nanking (Nanjing),
Rape of Nanking – torture, rape, mass murder |
|
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1938 |
Germany takes Sudetenland (the
militarized section of Czechoslovakia that was a barrier to Germany) ; Munich – Chamberlain
and the French leader agree to appeasement |
|
1938-11 |
Kristallnacht
– the
first public attack on the Jews |
|
Copyright
C. J. Bibus, Ed.D. 2003-2020 |
|
WCJC
Department: |
History – Dr. Bibus |
|
Contact
Information: |
281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu
|
|
Last
Updated: |
2020 |
|
WCJC Home: |
http://www.wcjc.edu/ |
[1] Military research, including the atomic bomb (or Manhattan Project), with Albert Einstein alerting FDR of German research. Other weapons: radar, sonar, firebombs.
[2] FDR helped the Allies without war. US could build bases in British island colonies in the Caribbean. Britain got 50 old destroyers from the US
[3] During 1941, threat by A. Phillip Randolph – African American leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Reminder: with German and Italian racism, the US cannot afford to look racist too in a world comparing the sides at war. Think about it.
[4] Following the election of 1940, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Bill. It allowed the president to lend or lease (notice these words don’t mean sell) “military equipment to ‘any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.”
[5] The federal government creates the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) in return for no march.
[6] 1941-12 Japan takes Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, and others; Corregidor surrenders May; Bataan Death March follows
[7] Had to sell all property in 48 hours; only what they could carry. Internment camps for Japanese and American-born children. 1988 – Congress – survivors $20K reparations
[8] The Japanese had held (see 1941-12) key territories without defeats—with Guadalcanal Island being their first.
[9] After Guadalcanal, the US strategy —called leapfrogging (for the very old kid’s game) or “wither on the vine” (if you nip or cut a vine, the fruit on it withers)–becomes bombing Japanese airbases and leaving the Japanese troops in place on the islands but without a way to supply the soldier.
[10] The optional primaries for this chapter cover some of the challenges of D-Day.
[11]
Caution: Some of you
may not want to read this footnote:
These methods solved the challenges of mass murder in the millions:
- Gas chamber that looks like a shower, tricking people arriving at the concentration camp to remove their own clothes
- Gas as a very efficient way to kill—one that does not require the murder to face directly the victim
- Forcing a few Jews in the concentration camp to drag the bodies to furnaces. (They had a vile stench from what I have read.)
- Using an earlier predecessor of computing to log the victims by the number tattooed on the victim and to log what was stolen
[12] FDR, Churchill, Stalin agree to the United Nations. Stalin promises aid in war against Japan, but our use of the atomic bomb ends that need. Stalin agrees to free and open elections in Eastern Europe, areas the Russians hold, but he does not.
[13] Later West Germany (prior US, Fr, Br zones) and East Germany (prior Ru zone) and later still a unified Germany
[14] During 1941, march threatened by A. Phillip Randolph – leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
[15] 1941-06: The federal government creates the Practices Commission (FEPC) in return for no march
[16] Had to sell all property in 48 hours; only what they could carry. Internment camps for Japanese and American-born children. 1988 – Congress – survivors $20K reparations
[17] US gets around this by FDR’s executive order the Destroyer-Bases Agreement and by Congress with the Lend-Lease Bill.
[18] In World War II, the prevention is the GI Bill.