US Homefront:
1. Selective Training and Service Act
It allowed people that were eighteen to go into the war. It instituted the draft. It was the first peacetime draft in US history. After 1973, US military depended on volunteers to fill needs.
2. Women's role in WWII
Women worked in factories and made stuff for the war. Some women signed up to be secretaries and nurses for the military.
3. African-American's role in WWII
There were a lot that were registered for the draft. They were segregated from the whites in their own units. They were not able to fight in the front lines at first. They were made cooks, janitors and other things. Eventually, they prove that they were just as good as the whites. They did outstanding. They would also farm and work in factories.
4. Asian's role in WWII
The Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes. A lot of American born Japanese people joined the American military to prove their loyalty. They had to wear tags that said that they were Japanese American. Asian Americans stepped up and fought for the country.
5. Hollywood's role in WWII
Looney Toons did a lot of propaganda pieces. Bob Hope was a comedian and he would go and talk to troops and get the morale up. They had a lot of clippings of the News reels that they would play before movies.
6. Office of Price Administration
It was an administration that was set up by FDR. It set up the ration coupon books. It did propaganda that tried to get people to carpool and ration food and gas for the troops.
7. War Production Board
It was made to make sure that they kept up with production of goods. Automobile factories would make tanks.
8. National War Labor Board
It was made to help work together to win the war. It was made to make sure that people did not go on strike because they did not think it was fair.
9. Why the Homefront helped win the war
Women stepped up. Production for war goods went up. Hollywood helped keep the war positive.
10. How US/Allies fought back against U-boats
We kept adding new things to the fight. We continued to make ships at a fast pace. We changed our naval code. We knew what they were doing through Ultra. The Convoy System was when they would go in large groups of ships with destroyers and merchant ships both. We used Radar, above the water, huff duff, below the water.
11. Intelligence gathering--Ultra/Magic
They were used to decipher their encryptions and codes from Germany. The name Ultra (Germany code) came from it being ultra secret and Magic (Japanese code) was the code name. They say it shortened the war by two years.
12. Operation Barbarossa (USSR vs. Germany)
It was the largest military operation in history. It was the Germany invasion of the Soviet Union. It had the most loss of life. The Red (Russia) Army killed the residents of Leningrad. Germany could not get the last 10% of Stalingrad and lost control. He invaded Russia for Lebensraum. Hitler hated the Slavs. He wanted Ukraine for the farmland. He could use the people for slave labor. He wanted the oilfields in the Caucasus Mountains. He did not trust Stalin. He was bored. Hitler thought that if he got Moscow then they would surrender. They got within 12 miles of the capitol. After they lost the capitol Hitler fired all his generals and hires younger ones. Leningrad was a siege, which is when you surround a city. It was an 872 day siege. People turned to cannibalism. Hungry gangs would attack and ate defenseless people. There were over 5 million casualties.
13. Battle in Africa and Italy
Africa- It was the first place that the US got involved. We invaded there first because they thought it was the weakest part of the Germany defenses. Operation Torch was when we invaded Morocco. A mini D-Day.
Italy- US, Canada, and British forces invaded with ships and plans. The Allies won but most of the Axis troops withdrawal. The Allies worked their way up Italy. And when they surrendered they became our part of the Allies.
14. US Generals-Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, MacArthur, Nimitz, Bradley
Marshall- He was the Chief of Staff of the US Military during WWII.
Eisenhower- Five star general. He was a supreme commander of all Allie troops in WWII.
Patton- He was a General in the US Army during WWI and WWII. He was the first American commander in WWII. He was known to be very disciplined and liked order.
MacArthur- He was the Chief of Staff during WWII. He was the army’s youngest major general. He was in charge of the army that was fight the Japanese.
Nimitz- He was in the Navy. He was the President of the Submarine design board. He signed for the US when Japan surrendered. He was the Chief of Staff of the Pacific.
Bradley- He was the one that Eisenhower always went to. He fought against the Germans and the Italians.
15. D-Day-Operation Overlord
It started with the fall of France when Hitler took it over. The Allies invaded German operated France and they entered through Omaha Beach. It was June 6, 1944. It had 12,000 planes, 7,000 water vessel, and 160,000 troops. There was an airborne assault first, then and an amphibious attack. The Allies Canada, US, Great Britain, and the Free French Underground. There were roughly 10,000 Allied casualties.
16. Battle of the Bulge
It was the largest and costliest battle for the US. It was Germans last offensive in the Western front. It took place in Belgium and the plan was the get a river and then a port. The troops that fought for the Allies were confused because they were new. At first the Battle was successful for the Germans. But it was the coldest winter on record. The Malmedy Massacre where Germans killed 63 of the US soldiers after they had captured them.
17. FDR Dies-Truman takes over
FDR was a sick man. He was paralyzed from the waist down because of polio. He had lots of heart problems. He had just started his fourth term in office and he died.
Truman was in the National Guard. When he was a president they dropped the bombs in Japan.
18. VE Day
VE Day is Victory in Europe Day on May 8, 1945. It was a day of celebration.
19. Battle in the Pacific-Island Hopping, Philippines, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa,
Island Hopping- It was when they would go from island to island. It focused on more strategic islands.
Philippines- There is two parts. They were attacked on the same day as Pearl Harbor. Bataan Death March was when thousands of Filipinos and Americans were marched 60 miles and thousands of people died. It could be up to 20,000 dead. MacArthur went back to the Philippines in 1944 after we took it back from the Japanese.
Coral Sea- It was important because if we would have lost Coral Sea the Japanese would have probably have gone for Australia. It was the first time that Japan did not win. We did not really win but we stopped their advances.
Iwo Jima- Was another offensive for the US. When we invaded the Japanese were dug in the hills. It was hard because they could see us, but we could not see them.
Okinawa- It was another invasion that was like Iwo Jima. It was a huge battle. It had the most casualties in the Pacific War.
20. Navajo Code Talkers
They work on the Pacific Front and they were young Navajo guys that used their language as code and the Japanese couldn’t decipher it. It wasn’t just the Navajo language, it was the Navajo language in code. There were 28 code talkers.
21. Doolittle's Raid
It was a bombing run on Japan. They didn’t want to do it to destroy anything, even though that is good, we went to show them we would fight back. The plan was to bomb Japan and land in China and refuel and come back. None of the aircrafts made it back but some of the people did eventually.
22. Manhattan Project
It was the making of the atomic bomb. They did it because they thought that Germany would make a bomb. It started in Manhattan. The scientist was J Robert Oppenheimer and he was a communist. Alamogordo, New Mexico was the place that they tested the bomb. It was hotter the sun at one point. The tower that it dropped off of was disintegrated. It was so heavy that they had to make a new plane to carry it.
23. Hiroshima bombing
Hiroshima was the first place that the US used the atomic bomb. Over 90% of the city was destroyed. It was called Little Boy. August 6, 1945. Over the years, there were close to 200,000 people that died. People’s shadows were burned into the ground.
24. Nagasaki bombing
It was called the Fat Man. It was after Hiroshima. It wasn’t meant for the second hit, it was suppose to be somewhere else but it was cloudy. This one was Plutonium. It didn’t go as smoothly as the first.
25. VJ Day
Victory in Japan day, it was August 14, 1945.
26. Yalta Conference
February, 1945, it was a conference where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt met to talk about post war in Europe. It talked about demilitarizing Germany. Stalin promised free elections in Eastern Europe. (which we now know was a lie) Stalin promised to join the war against Japan after war with Germany was over. It set up the United Nations.
27. Nuremburg Trials
They were War crime trials that Germany had to go through. People were sent to prison or put to death. Hermann Goering took over after Hitler until he killed himself during these trials.
28. Japanese Internment Camps in US
29. Why did the allies win the war?
30. GI Bill of Rights was to help war veterans transition back into normal life and get jobs and colleges.
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