Monday, April 2

[6Tara]

Today was a blog discussion day.

US Homefront:

 

1. Selective Training and Service Act

• Allowed people who were 18 to go into the army.
• It was the draft and forced them to go.
• Used until 1973 to fill military needs.
• After 1973 U.S. millitary depended on volunteers to fill needs.

 

2. Women's role in WWII

• Started working.
• Nurses and non-combatent parts of the war.
• Rosie the Riveter- representted women workers in WWII.
• Typists, taxi drivers, teachers were other jobs had.
• WAVES- women's navy- radio operators.
• WASP- women's army service pilots- test planes

 

Tokyo Rose- forced to broadcast propaganda to the Allied troops for Japan, convicted of treason.

 

3. African-American's role in WWII

• Registered for draft.
• Segragated units.
• Couldn't fight in the front line to begin with, they were cooks and janitors.
• Tuskegee Arimen- good bombers.
• If they couldn't fight, they had other roles in the homefront.

 

4. Asian's role in WWII

• Forced from their homes after Pearl Harbor.
• Japenese born in the U.S. volunteered to fight to regain trust.
• Had to wear tags.

 

5. Hollywood's role in WWII

• Bob Hope- went over to Pacific Theater and entertained the troops.
• Loony Toons- entertained people and propaganda.
• Show news reels before movies.

 

6. Office of Price Administration

• Set up by FDR in 1941.
• Set up ration books and propaganda pieces.
• USO- United Service Org.- entertaining people of U.S.
• A sticker- 4 gallons of gas per week.

 

7. War Production Board

• Established in 1942 by FDR.
• Made sure there was enough supply for WWII.

 

8. National War Labor Board

• Set up in 1942 by FDR.
• Stop arguments and work together during war.
• Make sure workers wouldn't go on strike.

 

9. Why the Homefront helped win the war

• Women stepped up and took men's jobs.
• War production was high.
• Hollywood helped keep the war positive.
• Organizations that set up rationing and people cut back.

 

10. How U.S./Allies fought back against U-boats

• U.S. kept adding new weapons and new ships.
• Changed naval code so Germany wouldn't know where U.S. would be.
• U.S. knew what Germany was going to do.
• 1943- U.S. took down a lot of German U-boats.
• Built faster ships.
• Used Ultra to kept boats out of that area.
• Convoy System- go in large groups of ships, in middle would be ships with goods on them surrounded by fighting ships.
• Radar- HF/DF- used to locate sources of enemy radio transmissions such as subs.
• Bombe- super computer
• Hunter Killers- designed to go after U-boats.

 

11. Intelligence gathering--Ultra/Magic

• Decifered their codes.
• Ultra- Ultra secret.
• Say war was cut down from 4-2 years.
• Ultra- done by British decifered German codes.
• Magic- same as Ultra- U.S. used it to decifer Japanese codes.

 

12. Operation Barborossa (USSR vs Germany)

• Largest invasion in history.
• Most costly in history.
• Many causualties.
• Germany invaded Soviet Union.
• Invaded Stalingrad and surrounded Lenengrad.
• Red Army- Russian army.
• Germany went after Salingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow.

 

• Battle of Moscow-
• HItler believed Moscow was the major military and political target in the USSR as it would lead to the collapse of the country.
• Hitler was mad that they lost.
• He fired all the commander-in-chiefs and highered new unexperienced generals.

 

• Siege of Leningrad-
• Most destructive in history.
• After people ran out of food, they turned to canabolism.
• Soviet troops finally turned things around.
• Germany never got control.
• Leningrad never surrendered.

 

• Invaded Soviet Union-
• Lebensraum.
• Despised the ethnic Slavs ruled by their "Jewish Boleshevik" masters.
• Wanted Ukraine for farmland.
• Could use people as slave labor.
• Didn't trust Stalin.
• Wanted the oilfields in the Caucasus mountains.

 

13. Battle in Africa and Italy

• Battle in Africa-
• Operation Torch- take over Morocco.
• Tunisian Campaign- German, Itailian, and Vichy French troops were in Tunisia.
• Erwin Rommel- The Desert Fox- later turned on Hitler.
• Bernard Montgomery- British general.
• George Patton- U.S. general.
• Jan. 1942- Casablanca Conference- Unconditional surrender- U.S. only wanted Germany to surrender this way.

 

• Battle of Italy-
• After Italy surrendered, they became an Allied power.

 

14. US Generals-Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, MacArthur, Nimitz, Bradley

• George C. Marshall- Chief of Staff of the U.S. Military during WWII. 
• Dwight Eisenhower- 5 star general, supreme Allied power general- in charge of all Allied powers- D day invasion.
• George Patton- 1st American commander in WWII, tough guy, he cused a lot, his troops respected him, but didn't like him, got in trouble for roughing up some troops, fought in Africa and later Europe, died in a car crash after WWII.
• Douglas MacArthur- big in Pacific theater, recieved medal of honor, in charge of army against Japan, military government of Japan after war.
• Chester Nimitz- got the life-saving medal, good with subs., signed for U.S. when Japan surrendered, Chief of Staff for Pacific, head of Navy, against Japan.
• Omar Bradley- fought in Africa, later in Europe, Eisenhower always went to him.

 

15. D-Day-Operation Overlord

• Allied invasion of Nazi controlled France.
• Operation Overlord- code name for battle of Normandy.
• 2 phases-
• Airborne assult at midnight
• Amphibious at the coast of France.
• June 6, 1944.
• Decoys to disract the Germans.
• Largest amphibious invasion in world history- 160,000 troops.

 

• Atlantic Wall-
• Spain to Norway.
• Slow down invasions.
• Built by Nazis between 1942-1944 on western coast of Europe.

 

 

16. Battle of the Bulge

• Largest and coastliest war the U.S. took part in.
• Germany's last offensive.
• Took Allies by surpise.
• Took place in Belgium.
• December 1944- January 1945 in winter.
• Germans created a bulge in the front line.
• Malmedy Masacre- 86 American soldiers killed by Germans.

 

17. FDR Dies-Truman takes over

• Just started 4th term.
• Died of cerebral hemorrhage.

 

• Truman-
• Decided to drop the bombs.
• Ended the war.

 

18. VE Day

• Victory in Europe- day the Axis powers surendered.
• May 8, 1945.

 

19. Battle in the Pacific-Island Hopping, Philippines, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa,

• Island Hopping-
• Went from island to island taking them over until they got to Japan.
• Went to islands with naval bases or runways for airplanes.

 

• Philippines-
• Japan attacked Philippines on Dec. 7, 1941.
• Bataan Death March- thousands of Philipinos and U.S. POW were forced to march 60 miles in heat by Japanese, many died, it was characterized by physical abuse and murder.
• Japan takes it over in 1942.
• U.S. won Japanese lost- Sep. 14, 1944

 

• Coral Sea-
• May 4-8, 1942
• Major naval battle between Japanese navy and Allied naval air forces from the U.S. and Australia.
• first naval batle in history in which neither side's ships saw or fired directly upon each other.
• Japan sank more ships but the Allies won because it was the first time Japan didn't win.

 

• Midway-
• June 4-7, 1942.
• Japan wanted to eliminate U.S. as a strategic power in the Pacific and believed a victory at Midway Island.
• Magic played a vital role in the Allied victory.
• japan's navy suffered heavy losses and bever recovered from this battle.

 

• Guadalcanal-
• August 7, 1942- Feb. 9, 1943.
• First battle where U.S. took the offensive that resulted in Japan's eventual surrender and the end of WWII.
• There was an invasion unlike Midway.

 

• Iwo Jima-
• Another offfensive by U.S.
• Hard for U.S. because Japanese were hidden in the mountains.
• 6,800 U.S. soldiers died.

 

• Okinawa-

 

20. Navajo Code Talkers

• Worked on Pacific front.
• Navjo men who used their language.
• Other countries couldn't get it because they didn't know Navajo.

 

21. Doolittle's Raid

• Bombing run on Japan.
• Wanted to raise moral.
• Wanted to show that they could fight against Japan.
• Successful in raising moral.
• Everyone crashed landed in China which Japan had control of at the time.

 

22. Manhattan Project

• Making of the Atomic bomb.
• Though Germany was going to make an Atomic bomb so U.S. wanted it first.
• Made in Manhattan.
• General Leslie Groves was in charge of project.
• J Robert Oppenhiemer- scientist in charge of bomb.
• Alamorgordo, NM- tested the bomb there.
• Trinity- code name for test bomb.
• Enola Gay- Paul Tibits' name for his plane.

 

23. Hiroshima bombing

• First place they used the Atomic bomb.
• 80,000 people died, many people had radiation posioning.
• Bomb was called "Little Boy"

 

24. Nagasaki bombing

• August 9.
• Bomb was called "Fat Man".
• Wasn't first on the list to be bombed, there were too many clouds elsewhere.

 

25. VJ Day

• August 14, 1945.
• Japan surrendered and ended the war.
• Victory in Japan.

 

26. Yalta Conference

• Feb. 1945.
• Talked about the post war in Europe.
• Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt.
• Germany would be broken into 4 occupation zones- U.S. Great Britain, France, and USSR.
• Stalin promised free election in Eastern Europe.
• Stalin promised to join the war against Japan after war with Germay was over.
• A conference at San Francisco to set up the United Nations.

 

27. Nuremburg Trials

• War crimes trials Germany had to go through.
• In Nuremburg, Germany.
• People were sentenced to death.

 

28. Japanese Internment Camps in US

 

 

29. Why did U.S. win the War?

• U.S. could decifer Japanese code.
• No one could decifer the Navajo code.

 

30. GI Bill of RIghts.

• Help transition U.S. soldiers who came back from war to get jobs again and get back to normal.