Era of the Second World War on the USA

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Era of the Second World War

on the USA

Learning audit

The Impact of the Second World War on the USA, 1941–1945

The debate concerning the end of isolationism

Understanding of US foreign policy in the 1930s.

Arguments for and those against the return to isolationism.

Examine the role of President Roosevelt and the development of the neutrality acts.

Understanding of lend lease and the cash and carry acts.

Understanding the reasons why the US eventually became involved again in European affairs.

A consideration and appreciation of the difficulties President Roosevelt had with regards to the start

of the Second World War.

Franklin Roosevelt and the reasons for US entry into the Second World War

Attack on Pearl Harbour

Investigate the controversy surrounding the attack.

Understanding of role of President Roosevelt and especially with regards to the declaration of war

made

Explain the reasons for US entry into WW2.

The impact of the Second World War on American society

Examine the participation of women in the workforce in the 1940s.

Explain different contributions women made to the war effort.

Examine the role of African-Americans and other ethnic minorities in the war effort.

Explain why there was an internment of Japanese Americans.

Analyse the broadening of GIs’ horizons through their participation in the Second World War –

especially African-Americans.

Summarise how attitudes have changed because of the war.

Understand the positive contributions of women and ethnic minorities to the war effort and how

this brings changes in society.

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The emergence of the United States as a world power by 1945

Examine the role of WPB (War Production Board).

Examine changes in agriculture.

Explain reasons as to why the USA dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945.

Why was there an economic boom during the war? Understand the reasons for the boom.

Understanding as to why the US became a world power and ‘arsenal for democracy’ speech by

FDR.

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We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war. I have passed unnumbered hours, I shall pass unnumbered hours, thinking and planning how war may be kept from this Nation.

Extract from Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech in New York City, 14 August 1936

Roosevelt spoke the words above in 1936, three years before the German forces of Adolf Hitler invaded Poland and Europe was plunged into world war. As an assistant secretary to the navy in 1918, Roosevelt had visited the fighting on the Western Front during the First World War, and he had been horrified by the death and conditions that he had witnessed. Nevertheless, by the end of 1941 the USA was plunged into the horror of war once more, fighting against both Germany and Japan in a war that would cost 400,000 American lives.

Roosevelt's Foreign Policies 1933-9

Roosevelt's priority was in solving the Depression. We have already seen how he told the 1933 World Economic Conference that the USA would go its own way. He had no illusions about the European dictators.

Indeed, as early as 1933 he told the French Ambassador that Hitler is a madman and his counsellors, some of whom I know personally are even madder than he is'. However, he had no intention in getting involved in European affairs. In the early 1930s he agreed with the traditional policy that the USA could act as a moral force for good if it avoided foreign entanglements and any accusation of taking sides. He encouraged economic co-operation through 'Good Neighbour" policies and increased trade. His Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, in particular believed in (the beneficial effects of trade between nations as 'the greatest peacemaker and civil War within human experience'. In this sense foreign policy was all about economics. This can be seen in US policies towards its Latin American neighbours.

Good Neighbour foreign policies

Although Roosevelt first mentioned the idea of 'Good Neighbour' policies in his inaugural address in 1933, it had pre-dated his presidency. For example, American troops were withdrawn from the Dominican Republic in 1924 and in Nicaragua they remained only for as long as it took to train a native police force to maintain order while democratic elections were held. The American military withdrawal from Latin America

encouraged trade and goodwill.

By 1929 the volume of American trade with Latin America totalled $3.2 billion. This was twice that of US trade with any other region in the world. This was reduced by 30 per cent during the Depression years. Roosevelt ordered American troops to leave Haiti where they had served since 1901. The USA agreed at the 1933 Montevideo Conference that no country had the right to intervene in either the internal or external affairs of another. The USA even resisted the temptation to intervene in Mexico when, in March 1938,

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President (Cardenas nationalised mainly British- and American-owned oil companies. The leaders of the American oil companies at first demanded military action and then demanded $260 million compensation from the Mexican government. With their own government refusing to take action the companies

eventually settle for $24 million. As a result of Good Neighbour' policies, FDR was able to negotiate trade agreements with 10 Latin American republics by 1938, which led to a 166 per cent increase in the volume of American exports to these countries.

Roosevelt had been advised that stern action over oil nationalisation would have created problems for other US business interests in Mexico. However, there is no doubt that his attention in foreign policy was more focused on what was happening in Europe and the Far Fast.

Neutrality

There was in the USA a strong feeling that involvement in the First World War had been a mistake that must not be repeated in any future conflict. We have seen how President Hoover blamed the war for the Great Depression. In the early 1930s, as we shall see later, there was considerable research into how the USA had got involved in the war. Many were looking for someone to blame. One scapegoat was the arms manufacturers. In 1931 Henry Stimson, Hoover's Secretary of State, tried to introduce an arms embargo law for the president to use whenever there was an international conflict. It would have been applied against belligerents.

A study of arms manufacture in the USA by the Senate under the leadership of Gerald Nye concluded that arms manufacturers had tricked the USA into entering the First World War, so they could make fortunes from the sales of their products. This conclusion was supported by an influential article in Fortune magazine in 1935 entitled 'Arms and Man', which suggested that the motto of arms manufacturers was, 'when there are wars, prolong them: where there is peace, disturb it".

Walter Mills in his book, The Road to War, published in 1935, argued that the USA had been drawn into the war as a result of:

• British propaganda

• heavy purchases of US arms by the Allies

• Wilson's favouring the Allies and therefore upsetting Germany unnecessarily.

Neutrality Acts

The message was clear: involvement in the war could and should have been avoided. I he lesson was that the USA should avoid involvement in future wars. This led in part to a series of Neutrality Ac ts passed by Congress:

 The 1935 Neutrality Act forbade the sale of munitions to all belligerent nations whenever the president proclaimed a state of war existed between them. It even went so far as to say that Americans travelling on ships of belligerent nations did so at their own risk. This was to avoid a similar outcry to the 1915 sinking of a British ship the Lusitania with hundreds of American nationals on aboard.

 In 1936 a second Neutrality Act banned all loans to belligerents.

 A third extended the provisions to civil war specifically to avoid American involvement in the Spanish Civil War, which h had begun in 1936.

 A fourth forbade US citizens to travel on ships of belligerent nations and said the sale of all goods to belligerents should be-on a cash-and-carry basis. This meant that countries paid for the goods before receiving them and were then responsible for carrying them home without US help.

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Non-involvement reached its peak in 1937 when a survey found that 94 per cent of Americans felt that US foreign policy should be geared towards keeping out of wars rather than helping prevent them from breaking out in the first place.

After this, however, as the world became a much more dangerous place, Roosevelt began to shift his policy. Nevertheless, most of his countrymen still sought to avoid any involvement. Roosevelt's dilemma was that privately he was increasingly at variance with public opinion and he had to educate the American people to change their minds.

This was particularly difficult for him as many of the most loyal supporters of the New Deal, for example the less well-off, were the most isolationist in outlook. Events that occurred over this period included the following.

In 1937 full-scale war erupted between Japan and China, although neither side made a formal declaration of war and therefore the Neutrality Acts were not invoked. Roosevelt realised China was dependent on US arms and it supplied the forces of Chiang Kai Shek with them. Chiang Kai Shek was the Chinese leader who opposed both the Japanese and the Communists, and the Americans had pinned their hopes on him as the most promising future leader of a peaceful and united China.

However, the USA showed considerable restraint when an American gunboat the Rinay was sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Yangste River. It accepted Japan's apology. Critics were more concerned with why the gunboat had been placed in danger than with what the Japanese had done.

Fear of war led to the Ludlow Amendment, which suggested that war should be declared only alter a popular referendum rather than by the president. The proposal was only narrowly defeated in Congress. By 1937 Roosevelt was concerned about the rise of the dictators and their aggressive foreign policies. In October he decided to test public opinion in a speech in which he condemned aggression and spoke rather vaguely of 'quarantining' aggressor nations. He was beginning to believe that US intervention might one day be necessary, although he knew that most Congressmen supported isolationism. He was right. The speech brought a storm of protest from the isolationist press.

It is easy with hindsight to say that the USA should have done more to stop the dictators, but the European democracies, notably Britain and France, were not doing much either. There were also limits as to what action Roosevelt could have taken, given the support for isolationism within the USA and the Neutrality Acts. The USA was also militarily very weak.

Summary diagram: Roosevelt's foreign policy 1933-9

Rearmament

The military weakness of the USA was mainly due to financial cutbacks. The mainland US Army stood at fewer than 100,000 men and their standard weapon was the 1903 Springfield rifle. The Air Corps and Navy between them had fewer than 1600 combat aircraft, many of them biplanes; this figure compared with 3600 in Nazi Germany. The USA was clearly in no position to start a war.

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US arms manufacturers, however, did well when the war in Europe began. They were, for example, selling aero-engines to France, a fact that emerged when a bomber earmarked for sale to the French crashed on a test-flight killing an official from the French air ministry. However, US businessmen were also openly trading with Nazi Germany. The Ethyl Gasoline Corporation, for example, helped the Germans to develop materials essential for their air war plans. Overall, US investment in Germany increased by 40 per cent from 1936 to 1940.

In December 1938, Roosevelt began to rearm the USA. In January 1939, for example, Congress allocated $500 million for military spending. While the president said this was for purposes of defence, it included the development of ‘Flying Fortress' bombers, which showed he must have had an offensive war in mind at some time in the future. By 1941, military budgets were four times that of 1940 and the USA was on its way to becoming an armed giant. This spending also restored employment to pre-Depression levels and saw an end to New Deal programmes as prosperity returned.

US response to war in Europe

When Britain and France went to war with Germany in September 1939, Roosevelt summoned Congress into special session to repeal the arms embargo terms of the Neutrality Acts. Most Americans sympathised with the Allied cause and wanted to see Germany defeated. This was because they disliked the aggression of Nazi Germany.

Many feared that if it conquered the European continent it would threaten the USA next. Already there was evidence that it was infiltrating agents into Latin America where many leaders appeared sympathetic to Hitler. As can be imagined, many American Jews also disliked the Na/is. While many Americans wished to continue with isolationist policies, the USA nevertheless found itself actively supporting the Allies until it was at war with Germany in all but name. Isolationism was over.

In November 1939, in a vote on party lines, Congress agreed to sell arms on a strictly cash-and-carry basis. No American ships would carry weapons. However, it was felt the sales would benefit the Allies rather than Germany as British warships could protect t their own vessels and destroy German carriers. Clearly

Congress had not anticipated the threat to British shipping from German U-boats.

Most Americans wanted Britain and France to win but as German successes mounted, this seemed decreasingly likely. The problem was compounded in the summer of 1940 when France was defeated and Britain stood alone against Germany. Britain had placed orders for 1400 aircraft and 25,000 aero-engines, bin was increasingly unable to pay. Roosevelt had overestimated Britain's wealth and began to realise that USA would have to help more if Britain was to stay in the war. This would involve a re-education of the American people.

The media gave five times as much time to interventionist programmes as isolationist ones. This meant, for example in cinema newsreels and radio programmes, that Americans were made to feel sympathy with the allies. Many Americans were moved by Edward Morrow's radio reports from London during the Blitz.

 A pro-intervention series of documentaries The March of Time was commissioned.

 Movies in which Nazis were portrayed as villains were plentiful and their infiltration of American life was depicted in such as films as Confessions of a Nazi S/>\.

 Newspaper and magazine articles fuelled fears of Nazi Germany. Fears were voiced that the

Germans had developed long-range aircraft that could bomb the US and drop gas bombs that could kill everyone in Manhattan.

The America First Campaign was set up by isolationists meanwhile to keep USA out of the conflict. Among its leaders was the aviator Charles Lindbergh. Much of the campaign's finance came from the German

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Embassy. An American Nazi Party, the Volksbund, upset many Americans by its paramilitary style and attacks on Jews. Increasingly out-and-out isolationists were seen, fairly or otherwise, as supporters of Germany. This diminished their support.

In 1940, Roosevelt 'traded' Britain f>0 destroyers for six Caribbean bases. British bases on Bermuda and Newfoundland were also leased to the USA. I his was good business for Roosevelt. lit- had swapped some elderly destroyers for valuable bases. Nevertheless, it marked a shift to active support for Britain in the war that allowed her to continue to defend her merchant ships.

The 1940 election

Although the Republicans and their candidate, Wendell Willkie, were seen as the party of non-involvement, support for neutrality did cross party lines. Roosevelt decided to stand for a third term partly because there seemed no suitable successor within the Democratic Party. He repeated to audiences how much he hated war. Indeed, in Boston in September, Roosevelt made a famous speech in which he assured listeners that American 'boys were not going to be sent into any foreign wars'.

However, Roosevelt was beginning to appeal more to businessmen who would do well out of war and less to his more traditional supporters whose boys would be fighting in one. Despite what he said, the USA was moving ever closer to war.

Although his victory was smaller than in 1936, by 27 to 22 million votes, Roosevelt decided to act more boldly after winning. In a fireside chat of 29 December 1940 he called the USA ' the arsenal of democracy', meaning the provider of arms to Britain. This was effectively a turning point in his policy and he began to prepare Americans for lend-lease.

Lend-lease and the Atlantic Charter

Lend-lease was introduced with Congressional approval in May 1941. This meant that Britain would be 'loaned' the means to keep fighting.

Roosevelt likened it to lending a neighbour a garden hose to light a fire that might otherwise have spread to his own property, but everyone knew you did not lend weapons.

The USA was effectively giving Britain the means to remain in the war. This too showed a switch in policy. Roosevelt had been reluctant to give Britain weapons in 1940 in case she was defeated and Germany subsequently used America's own weapons against her.

In the meantime, in August, Roosevelt had met with the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, on the British battleship Prince of Wales, anchored off the Newfoundland coast of Canada. After three days of talks, they issued the Atlantic Charter.

This was a powerful expression of a vision of what the world should be like after 'the final destruction of Nazi tyranny', with international peace, national self-determination and freedom of the seas.

Churchill had also sought a declaration of war from Roosevelt but this was not forthcoming. The president was even vague about agreeing to the setting up of an international organisation to promote peace in a postwar world.

He remembered American responses to the League of Nations. Roosevelt did, however, agree to send aid to the USSR, which had been invaded by Germany in June 1941. In November 1941, Lend-lease was extended to the I'SSR. While the ISA was clearly now giving all aid short of war to the Allies, it did find itself increasingly in direct conflict with Germany in the Atlantic Ocean.

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This decision is the end of any attempts at appeasement, the end of compromise with tyranny and the forces of oppression.

Roosevelt speaking after the passing of the Lend-lease Act

When discussing support of Roosevelt’s policies. It could be argued that many moderate Republicans supported Roosevelt over Lend-Lease, including Wendell Willkie. Roosevelt was also skilful in accepting amendments in order to compromise and win over doubters. Yet the public mood was changing.

In the summer of 1941, far more Americans were in favour of continuing aid to Britain than had been the case a year before. This mood hardened after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June. The high tide of isolationism had passed its peak.

Churchill had also sought a declaration of war from Roosevelt but this was not forthcoming. The president was even vague about agreeing to the setting up of an international organisation to promote peace in a post-war world.

He remembered American responses to the League of Nations. Roosevelt did, however, agree to send aid to the USSR, which had been invaded by Germany in June 1941. In November 1941, Lend-lease was extended to the USSR. While the USA was clearly now giving all aid short of war to the Allies, it did find itself increasingly in direct conflict with Germany in the Atlantic Ocean.

Never before have the American people been asked or compelled to give so bounteously and so

completely of their tax dollars to any foreign nation. Never before has the Congress of the United States been asked by any president to violate international law. Never before has this nation resorted to duplicity in the conduct of its foreign affairs. Never before has the United States given to one man the power to strip this nation of its defences. Never before has a Congress coldly and flatly been asked to abdicate. If the American people want a dictatorship - if they want a totalitarian form of government and if they want war - this bill should be steamrollered through Congress, as is the wont of President Roosevelt. Approval of this legislation means war, open and complete warfare. I, therefore, ask the American people before they supinely accept it -Was the last World War worthwhile?

Senator Burton K. Wheeler attacking Lend-lease in the Senate, 12 January 1941

Why was the Atlantic Charter important?



It was the beginning of the 'special relationship' between the USA and Britain.



It was the beginning of a personal and political friendship between the two leaders that lasted throughout the war. They are reputed to have conversed every day.



It set out plans for a new world order based on democratic principles.



It recognised Stalin as a partner and promised to continue sending supplies to the USSR. The Americans provided 13 million pairs of shoes for the Soviet army.



Roosevelt thought that the American public would still not support war, but achieving the Charter aims would be impossible without involvement in warfare. Churchill told his War Cabinet on his return, 'The president has said that he would wage war, but not declare it', and that he would look for an 'incident' which would justify formal hostilities. It was expected that the 'incident' would be in the Atlantic. Instead it came in the Pacific, four months later.



The USA was already expressing concerns about the continuation of imperialism by Britain, France and the Netherlands once the war was over.

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The undeclared naval war

The American Navy was fighting an undeclared war against Germany in the Atlantic. In January 1941, US ships had begun to patrol the North Atlantic warning the British convoys against U-boats and on occasion engaging them in battle. In April 1941 USA occupied Greenland and in July Iceland, in order to prevent their bases becoming U-boat harbours. In September 1941 an American destroyer sank the U652, which it had been tracking. The Navy began escorting British convoys as far as Iceland. In October 1941 the American ship Reuben fames was sunk by a German submarine. Thereafter, Congress allowed merchant ships to be armed.

As discussed, Roosevelt was clearly giving Britain 'all aid short of war' but he still was not prepared to formally go to war with Germany, lie had no wish to be a president who took his country into war. He had made great play throughout his career of how much he hated war. Indeed, his horror of the sights when he had visited the trenches of the First World War had stayed with him all his life. He realised that, while the majority of Americans supported Britain, they still wished to keep out of the conflict - although a Gallup poll in May 1941 showed only 19 per cent of respondents thought he had gone too far in helping Britain. He felt indeed that the USA would have to be attacked before it went to war but, the conflict in the Atlantic notwithstanding, the Germans were anxious not to give the USA this excuse. It was in fact the Japanese who caused full-scale American involvement with their attack on the American naval base at Pearl harbour.

Road to Pearl Harbor

The USA and Japan were increasingly at loggerheads in the Pacific. Neither side wanted war. However, their relations were worsening and Japan in particular felt it had little room for manoeuvre.

Japan and US relations had deteriorated since the Japanese invasion of China, which had begun in 1937. Japan declared the open door policy obsolete. Roosevelt retaliated by lending funds to China to buy weapons and by asking US manufacturers not to sell planes to Japan. Japan was dependent on supplies of industrial goods from the I SA and if these dried up it realised it needed to find new suppliers, by force if necessary.

In July 1940, Congress limited supplies of oil and scrap iron to Japan. After the signing of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis, Roosevelt banned the sale of machine tools to Japan. In spring 1941 Secretary of State Cordell Hull met with the Japanese Ambassador kichisaburo to resolve differences between the two countries. Hull demanded Japan withdraw from China and promise not to attack Dutch and French colonies in Southeast Asia. Japan did not respond because the USA offered them nothing in return.

The European powers were involved in the war in their own continent and could not defend their Asian possessions, for example, in the Dutch Kast Indies. When France was defeated by Germany, the Japanese marched into the French colonies in Indochina. Japan subsequently announced the setting up of the Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This was effectively a means by which Japan could economically exploit countries under its control.

In July 1941, the USA responded by freezing Japanese assets in the USA and an embargo on oil. Japan was almost wholly dependent on US oil.

As the military increasingly took over in Japan, the new Japanese Ambassador in Washington, Nomura, told Hull that Japan would halt any further expansion if US and Britain cut off aid to China and lifted the

economic blockade on Japan. Japan, indeed, promised to pull out of Indochina if a 'just peace' was made with China. Some historians believe today that Japan, bogged down in its Chinese war, was genuinely seeking a face-saving way out. However, few feel that Japan would actually have honoured any agreement it made with China.

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Attack on Pearl Harbor

Why did the USA go to war with Japan in 1941?

Few in the USA at the time trusted Japan. The USA did not respond to the Japanese offers and so the Japanese made preparations to attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. The objective of this attack was to immobilise the US Navy so it could not stop Japan's expansion into East Asia, to areas such as the Dutch East Indies with their supplies of oil. Japan had not told its European allies of its intentions.

In the early morning of Sunday 7 December 1941, when most of the garrison were asleep, the Japanese launched a ferocious attack on Pearl Harbor. Catching the defenders by surprise, their fighter planes and bombers destroyed 180 American aircraft, and sank seven battleships and 10 other vessels.

Over 2400 American servicemen were killed. However, the American aircraft carriers were out at sea and avoided being attacked. Further, the Japanese had missed the American fuel stores, which if hit would have meant the entire naval base would have had to return to the USA, thus leaving the region entirely

undefended against further Japanese aggression.

On 8th December, the USA declared war on Japan. On 11th December, honouring his treaty obligations, Hitler declared war on the USA, as did his ally, Italy.

The USA had shifted from a policy of strict neutrality to full-scale involvement in one of the most terrible wars in history. American involvement saw an end to the New Deal and by 1945 the USA would emerge as by far the most powerful nation on earth.

What role did the USA play in achieving Allied victory in the Second World War?

The United States had been supporting Britain in various ways for over a year, but they were not ready to take a full part in the War. The War Powers Act 1941 gave the President wide-ranging powers and he used them to mobilise the American population and economy for total warfare. Boards were set up to control labour, production and prices. In 1943 the Office of War Mobilisation was set up under James Byrne, who did a similar job to that done by Baruch and the War Industries Board in the First World War. The Second World War saw a massive growth in federal government and federal power.

When America entered the War, this time as an ally, things were not going well. The Germans controlled most of Europe - from the Atlantic coast to the Balkans - and were occupying large areas of the Soviet Union and North Africa. In the East, the Japanese expansion was rapid. By May 1942, they had taken Guam, Wake Island, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Roosevelt knew the

American public wanted to focus on Japan and take revenge for Pearl Harbor, and it to ihe alliance was in the Pacific theatre that the Axis' advance was stopped. However, y and Japan Churchill was able to persuade the President that the military focus 'll1 NVar should be on defeating Hitler in Europe.

The War in Europe

There were many arguments between the Allied political and military leaders during the War. At

the beginning, they focused on tactics. As well as arguing for the concentration on Europe,

Churchill also argued for an attack in the Mediterranean and not in France. The Russian leader,

Joseph Stalin, was keen for the Allies to open a second front' in the West to take pressure off the

Red Army.

However, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt that any second front would take a long time to plan

fully. In the meantime, an attack on Italy, the weakest Axis power, would be more effective. (This

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delay in organising the second front was to cause much suspicion between the Great Powers but,

given how close the D-Day landings were to failure, an early attack might have delayed victory

even longer.)

In October 1942, the first important Allied victory of the War occurred when Montgomery's troops

defeated the Germans at El Alamein and began to push them out of Egypt. In November, General

Dwight D. Eisenhower led Allied landings in North Africa at Oran, Algiers and Casablanca. The

weakness of American preparation was clear, but they soon learned and they had talented

leadership under General Blood and Guts' Patton. With American and British soldiers advancing

from the West and the British Eighth Army advancing from the East, the Germans and Italians

were trapped. In May 1943, around 250,000 Axis soldiers in Tunisia surrendered.

Controlling North Africa both allowed the Allies to maintain control of the Suez Canal and gave

them a launching point for the attack on Italy. Sicily was attacked from the sea and the air in July,

and fell quickly. From there they moved on to the Italian peninsula itself, taking Naples in October

1943. It seemed the victory would be quick and easy but, though the Italians surrendered in

September, the German army moved in to take control. They proved to be a more effective

adversary. The Americans had heavy fighting around Monte Cassino and it was not until 1944 that

Rome finally fell and Italy was taken.

1943 was a crucial year in the War. Not only were there victories in North Africa and Italy, but the

Battle of the Atlantic had turned. The wolf packs' of German U-boats had been very effective in

sinking Allied shipping. However, superior technology such as radar (developed by Britain), sonar,

depth charges and above all the ability of American shipyards to replace ships as fast as they were

being sunk, kept the supply lines of the Atlantic open. This kept Britain fed and allowed the

build-up of men and equipment ready for D-Day. 1943 was also the year of the victory at Stalingrad. This

was easily one of the worst battles of the war: at its height, life expectancy of the soldiers involved

was three days. The Soviet victor in February began the retreat of the German army from the East.

In the West, little could be done until the Allies were prepared for the invasion. The bulk of the

fighting in Europe until 1944 had fallen on the Russians. Allied air forces, however, played their

part with the continuous bombing campaigns of Germany. The actual effect of these campaigns is

debatable. They probably had little effect on German morale while costing the loss of 10,000

planes. A question frequently asked is why none of these bombing raids was conducted against

the death camps of the Holocaust. The Allied leaders argued that bombing places like Auschwitz

would take effort away from the main targets in Germany and the extra distance to Poland was

difficult to manage. These arguments may have some truth, but there is little doubt that bombing

the camps might have saved thousands of lives in the long run.

By 1944, the invasion was ready. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, it was launched. Over the next two

weeks, over one million men were landed on the beaches of Normandy, but it was July before

General Bradley's men finally broke through the German lines at St Lo. From there they advanced

quickly and, in August, American soldiers liberated Paris. Then the Germans rallied and the

Ardennes Offensive pushed the Americans back, echoing Ludendorff's gamble a quarter of a

century earlier. At the so-called Battle of the Bulge, the Americans lost 55,000 killed or wounded.

By 1945, the Allies were again on the advance and, in January, crossed into Germany. Tragedy

came in April, but not on the battlefield. On 12 April, Franklin Roosevelt died. He had been elected

for a fourth term just five months earlier, but his struggle against the Depression and the tyrannies

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of Japan and Germany had finally taken their toll. He was by no means a perfect leader in either

peace or wartime and he made a lot of mistakes. In negotiations during the War he could be too

idealistic and naive, particularly regarding political and diplomatic issues. But any man who could

work with, and stay on good terms with, such individuals as Churchill and Stalin, not to mention

egos, was no fool.

Roosevelt deserves much of the credit for keeping the Grand Alliance together during the Second

World War. He managed to defend American interests, occasionally at the expense of the wider

picture, but his support of Britain before 1941 was crucial to Britain's ability to continue the fight.

He left many complex issues for his successor, Harry Truman, to deal with, but Roosevelt is

without doubt one of the greatest and most important presidents in Americas history.

Roosevelt did not live to see the victory he had done so much to bring about but, on 7 May, the

Germans surrendered. Full attention could now be turned to defeating the Japanese.

War in the Pacific

Although Germany fell first, the US Navy brought initial American victories in the Pacific. In May

1942, the Battle of the Coral Sea stopped the rapid Japanese advance and secured Australian

safety. The Battle of Midway Island, the following month, resulted in the sinking of four Japanese

carriers and the destruction of more than 300 planes. From then on, the Japanese were on the

retreat. Coral Sea was a battle fought entirely by aircraft carriers, and illustrates the importance of

luck in war. Had the American carriers not been out at sea when Pearl Harbor was attacked, the

whole Pacific War could have been different.

Although the British took a major role in the war in the East on land (e.g. in Burma), the Pacific War was largely an American affair. The Americans launched a two-pronged attack across the Ocean led by Admiral Chester Nimitz in the North and General Douglas MacArthur in the South. They 'island hopped' their way to Japan. In August, American marines landed at Guadalcanal. But it took six months for the island to fall into their hands. Throughout the next year they fought for and captured islands including Tarawa and Saipan, the latter putting them within 1,500 miles of Japan itself. From there, air force B-29s launched firebombing raids on the Japanese mainland. Further naval battles in 1944 effectively destroyed the Japanese navy. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, in October 1944, was the largest naval battle in American history. It seemed that the war in the Pacific was to be the story of hard, but steady, advance.

The brutality and difficulty of the battles worried the American military. Guadalcanal had taken six months to capture. When the marines took control of Iwo Jima, they had more than 25,000 casualties and 21,000 Japanese were killed. Taking Okinawa cost even more. Japanese kamikaze' pilots had sunk more than 30 ships. It was believed the Japanese would fight equally hard to protect their homeland, meaning that their defeat would take at least another 18 months as well as cost an additional million lives. In July, Truman warned the Japanese that if they did not surrender unconditionally the Americans would unleash on them a new weapon. Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August and on Nagasaki three days later. Five days later Japan surrendered, the formal ceremony taking place on the battleship Missouri on 14th September.

The decision to drop the bomb has been the subject of controversy ever since. The main argument has been that it was unnecessary and was done to stop Russian advances in the East. There is little doubt that Truman was influenced by a desire to contain Russia. It had been agreed at Yalta in February 1945 that in return for its declaration of war on Japan the USSR would gain territory in Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands.

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It was feared that once war started it would advance quickly and capture not only Japanese territory, but also occupied areas such as Korea. If the Russians then held on to these areas it would upset the balance of power in the East. Russia declared war on 8th August and a second bomb, argued to be unnecessary by Truman's critics, was dropped the following day. Even Secretary of State James Byrnes admitted that the bomb would 'make Russia more manageable'. Though it was a factor, this had not been Truman's primary motive.

The Manhattan Project had spent $2 billion developing the bombs - among many new weapons developed during the Second World War to make victory more likely. It was hardly likely that given this investment they would not use the weapon once it had been tested successfully. The USA was in a race. Had the Germans developed the atomic bomb first there is little doubt that they would have used it.

It has sometimes been claimed that the United States had a racist motive for dropping the bombs on Japan. Even though their previous treatment of Asian peoples is hardly a record to be proud of, the atom bomb was initially developed for use against Germany. That it was ready for use only after the fall of Europe was simply a matter of timing.

The cost of taking the islands, and the perceived cost of taking Japan, was Truman's main motive. The War, as already stated, was expected to cost at least a million American lives and last another year. The use of the atom bomb was to end the War with the loss of as few American lives as possible. Even after the bombs had been dropped, it was five more days before the Japanese finally surrendered. Few soldiers in the Pacific at the time would have criticised Truman's decision.

What impact did the Second World War have on the US economy and society?

Despite fears of long-distance Nazi super bombers there were only two bombing raids on the USA

during the war. Both came in September 1942 when, on two separate occasions, a single Japanese

aircraft carrying two bombs was launched from submarines. Their objective was to ignite forest

fires and divert essential war resources to fire fighting. Neither mission succeeded. They tended to

show how remote the USA itself was from the conflict and how able it was, therefore, to produce

the materials necessary for Allied victory.

There is no doubt that involvement in the Second World War rather than the New Deal brought

prosperity back to the USA. In this section we will consider the USA during the war in terms of

political, economic and social developments, all of which were to have far-reaching consequences

for the subsequent history of the USA. Roosevelt, however, did not live to see these fruits. Having

won a fourth term of office in the 1944 presidential election, he-died in April 1945. This was one

month before the war ended in Europe and four months before the Japanese surrendered

following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons, research into which had

been begun by Roosevelt in 1939.

Timeline

of

events

Beginning of research in the USA into nuclear weapons

: 1939

Japanese bombing raids on USA

: 1942

Roosevelt began his fourth term of office

: 1944

Death of Roosevelt

: 1945

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Political effects



The government took over more control of people's lives. In 1940 the Smith Act had been

passed which made ii illegal to threaten to overthrow the government of the USA.



Originally aimed at supporters of fascism, it later became associated with the attack on

Communists.



The Selective Service Act of the same year had introduced conscription. As the war

developed the Office of War Mobilization was created to control the supply of goods and

prices; the National War Labor Board set wages. As we shall see in the next section these

measures had a huge effect on the wartime economy and the freedoms of the labour

force.

Economic effects

How was industry organised for war?

 The War Production Board (WPB) established in January 1942 had the remit of changing production priorities to the needs of the military.

 Silk ribbon factories now made parachutes and car factories made tanks and planes.

 War management commission set up in 1942 had to recruit workers where they were needed most.

 New industries were created particularly for synthetic materials such as as rubber. Research into improving military weapons, such as radar and the atom bomb, would have peacetime uses.  In order to keep industry profitable, government contracts guaranteed profits and a web of

interdependence created a triangle of military needs, government contracts and business production

 Agriculture became more mechanised as farm workers were needed for fighting. It was to be the end of the family-run farm, as more and more were bought up by co-operatives or became part of large agri-business units.

 Labour unions continued to increase their membership. In 1941 they had agreed to a no-strike/no lock out pledge with employers, to aid war production. The National War Labor Board (NWLB) banned, the War Labour Disputes Act enforced a 30 day cooling off period before a strike and authorised the NWLB to settle disputes.

Were the measures successful?

 War planes

In 1940, 6000 planes In 1942 47000 planes and In 1943, 85000 planes  Hardware

Between 1940 and 1943 the US produced 86333 tanks and 12.5 million rifles

Shipyards built 107 aircraft carriers and 35 million tons of merchant shipping were produced  Female workforce

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16  Supplies

By 1943 the USA had produced more than twice the war supplies of Germany, Italy and Japan combined.

American involvement in war production made the New Deal irrelevant. Between 1941 and 1945 the USA produced 86,000 tanks, 296,000 aircraft and 15 million rifles. Farm income grew by 250 per cent. It is true to state that unemployment effectively ceased by 1942; in 1944 it stood at 1.2 per cent, having fallen from 14.6 per cent in 1940. In 1944 alone, 6.5 million women entered the labour force; by the end of the war almost 60 per cent of women were employed.

The number of African-Americans working for the federal government rose from 50,000 in 1939 to 200,000 by 1944. In the years between 1940 and 1944 five million African-Americans moved to the cities where a million found jobs in defence factories.

Gross national product (GNP) meanwhile rose from $91.3 billion in 1939 to $166.6 billion by 1945.

However, under the Office of War Mobilization, food prices and rents were strictly controlled. Some items such as meat, sugar and petrol were rationed, and the production of cars for ordinary motorists stopped entirely.

While many consumer items such as clothes were made from far less material and became simpler in style and others disappeared from the shops, most Americans were comparatively well paid during the war and did not suffer the deprivations of those in other belligerent countries.

Although prices rose by 28 per cent during the war years, average wages increased by 40 per cent; people may not have had much to spend these wages on but they could and did save. It was the spending power of these consumers which helped to fuel the post-war boom period.

As a result of the costs of the war, the National Debt which stood at $41 billion in 1911 had risen to $260 billion by 1945. The federal government spent twice as much between 1941 and 1945 as it had before in 150 years.

Roosevelt hoped to pay for much of the war production by increased taxes. The highest earners paid 94 per cent tax. This gave a sense of greater equality. The poor grew more wealthy during the war years and the rich received a smaller proportion of national income, as the table shows.

Table showing % of national income taken by richest 1% of the population.

However, while the economy grew significantly during the war years, the most dramatic changes occurred in the lives of ordinary Americans.

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Social effects

Movement of people

In addition to the 15 million servicemen and women who were called up, by the end of the war, one in eight civilians had moved to find war work, generally from the south to the north and from east to west. The population of California, where there were large numbers of defence plants, rose by 72 per cent during the war years.

Treatment of Japanese-Americans

Towards the end of 1941, as US-Japanese relations worsened, 2000 Japanese labelled subversives had been rounded up (along with 14,000 Germans and Italians), although there was no official desire for internment. In fact, General John L. Dewitt, Chief of the Army West Coast Command, dismissed any such talk as

'damned nonsense'. However, increasing fears of a Japanese attack on the West Coast led to calls for internment even by respected journalises such as Walter Lippmann. Dewitt, responsible for West Coast security, gave in to this pressure, saying it was impossible to distinguish between loyal and traitorous Japanese and therefore all should be locked up.

Between February and March 1942, 15,000 Japanese-Americans, many of whom had relations fighting in the American forces, voluntarily left Hewitt's area of command. However, other areas of the USA refused to accept them The Attorney-General of Idaho, for example, said his state was for whites only. Dewitt decided on compulsory relocation; 10 'relocation centres' were set up throughout the West, where 100,000

Japanese-American were forcibly sent. They had to leave their property unprotected. Much looting went on in their absence. One source estimated the community suffered losses worth $400 million. The relocation centres, meanwhile, were akin to concentration camps with armed guards and barrack-type

accommodation.

Riots in the camp at Manzanar left two inmates dead. One of the guards said the only thing that stopped him machine gunning them was what the Japanese might do the American POWs in retaliation. By 1944, as fear of Japanese attack receded, the internees began to return home. In December 1944, the Supreme Court forbade the internment of loyal Japanese-Americans.

Nevertheless, neither their fellow Japanese-American citizens who lived outside Dewitt's command nor German- or Italian-Americans had been interned in this way, and so ill-feeling among many of those involved remained for some time.

African-Americans

African-Americans demanded better treatment during the war. As knowledge of the Holocaust in Europe grew, many Americans began to examine their own racial attitudes. However, much prejudice remained and, as we have seen, African-American leaders called for a march on Washington in 1941 to air their grievances. This worried Roosevelt, who was fully aware that the Nazis were accusing the USA of hypocrisy by condemning their attitudes to Jews while openly denying civil rights to African-Americans.

Roosevelt did what he could. He issued Executive Order 8802 to ban discrimination in defence plants and set up the Fair Employment Practices Committee to ensure it was carried out. However, it is impossible to legislate away racist attitudes. There were a series of race riots, culminating in three days' violence in Detroit in 1943 which saw 25 African-Americans and nine whiles killed. It was left to the 1960s and 1970s to see real progress in race relations in the USA.

Women

While women found plentiful employment they also found continuing prejudice and lower pay than their male workmates. However, because they were not subject to conscription into the armed forces employers

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liked them. Despite racial and gender prejudice African-American women found work in defence plants because the demand for labour was so acute.

Historians' Conclusions about Roosevelt and US Entry into the Second World War

Historians differ in their assessments of the wisdom and abilities of Franklin Roosevelt. Some criticise him for standing up to Japan, and for making that country choose its suicidal course. William Can blamed America for being over emotional and excessively moralistic with regard to the defence of China. A few historians go so far as to blame Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor in the sense that he deliberately ignored warnings and left the Pacific fleet vulnerable in order to encourage a Japanese attack which would get America into war. However, the disaster at Pearl Harbor was more likely due to confusion and

incompetence at all levels.

Some historians, for example Robert Divine, consider Roosevelt an isolationist.

Others disagree: 'Roosevelt meant to shape the world his way and bided his time' (Michael Simpson). Simpson saw Roosevelt as a Wilsonian internationalist, who wanted a world full of free-trading

democracies. Simpson defended Roosevelt's Pacific policy, pointing out that a massive Japanese Empire would damage free trade, Robert Dallek's exhaustively researched book substantiates the argument that Roosevelt was an internationalist, whose ideal world contained many democracies, much free trade, and little imperialism. The leader of that free world would be America, for the security of which no aggressive power such as Germany or Japan could be allowed to expand unchecked. That philosophy was well thought out, if not necessarily right, and it led Roosevelt to cajole and connive so as to ensure America got into war to defend what he perceived to be its national interest. Dallek praises him for carefully and slowly building the popular consensus that enabled America to enter the Second World War with the national unity that the Vietnam War subsequently demonstrated to be so essential.

The USA and International politics

The Grand Alliance between the USA, Britain and the USSR was never a real partnership. There were big ideological differences between the West and the Soviet Union - it can be argued that a 'Cold War' had already existed since the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 or even since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The western Allies and the USSR only came together because of their joint enemy, Hitler. Once fear of Hitler was taken away as Germany came closer to defeat, so the tensions between the Allies came to the forefront. The Cold War did not fully take shape until 1949 but its beginnings can be traced back to well before the end of the war.

Although the main divide was between Stalin and the West, there were deep-rooted differences between the USA and Britain. These tensions became more obvious as the war progressed. Some differences were traditional: in 1919, for example, many Americans were worried that Britain would try to use American power to keep the British Empire intact. Some tensions were due to a clash of personalities - many

American generals found the British commander Montgomery very difficult to work with - but the key issue was that America no longer saw Britain as an equal.

There was also a difference between Roosevelt and Churchill in their approach to Stalin. Roosevelt was convinced that he would be able to establish an effective relationship with Stalin and make lasting bargains with him. Roosevelt was often irritated by Churchill's more confrontational approach. It is possible that Stalin had some influence on this by encouraging Roosevelt's view of Churchill as an old-fashioned

imperialist. All these tensions played an important part in the series of wartime conferences that took place between January 1943, at Casablanca, and July 1945, at Potsdam.

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Before the peace conference at Potsdam, the wartime summit meetings were focused on winning the war as well as planning for its aftermath. At Tehran, for example, an important decision was taken to demand unconditional surrender from Germany, partly to reassure Stalin that there would be no separate peace. Although the Yalta Conference in February 1945 was mostly concerned with agreeing the post-war division of Europe, one key issue was to ensure Soviet involvement in the final defeat of Japan - something that, at the time, was expected to be a long and costly process.

In 1945, American influence was as important as 'Wilsonism' had been in 1919. The difference was that, this time, American involvement in world affairs was going to be permanent. Ironically, there was no peace settlement, signed by all the belligerents, as after the First World War. The Potsdam Conference was inconclusive and no 'final' peace treaty to end the Second World War took place until the reunification of Germany in 1990. In reality, the settlement in 1945 was the Cold Wir, with the balance of power between the USA and Western Europe on one side and the Soviet bloc on the other.

Because there was no final post-war settlement, the provisional agreements made at the wartime summit meeting at Yalta in the Crimea in February 1945 took on great significance. What happened at Yalta, and President Roosevelt's part in it, has been a cause of intense dispute ever since. Many historians consider that Yalta was the best deal Roosevelt could possibly have achieved in the circumstances, but some conservative historians disagree. They claim that Yalta was a great diplomatic failure, a 'betrayal' that sacrificed the freedoms of Poland and the states of east central Europe because a gullible Roosevelt failed to stand up to Stalin's power politics.

Roosevelt was already a dying man when he got to Yalta. Before flying to the Crimea, he had met Churchill at Malta. The British delegation was alarmed to see Roosevelt's visible physical deterioration. The Malta Conference also revealed a lot of the disagreements between the American and British negotiating positions. Roosevelt was sure he could 'make a trade' with Stalin; Churchill wanted to adopt a tough approach.

Historians disagree about the Yalta Conference. Throughout the Cold War, right-wing commentators have criticised Roosevelt as the 'man who lost the peace' - accusing him of failing to stand up to Stalin and therefore sacrificing eastern Europe to future Soviet domination. According to the British historian Norman Davies, 'Poland was handed to Stalin on a plate.' Defenders of Roosevelt saw his policy as a realistic one in the circumstances of February 1945. By then, Soviet troops already controlled most of Poland and Eastern Europe anyway. Roosevelt wanted to keep the alliance with Stalin intact because he believed Soviet help was needed to finish off Japan.

One reason why Yalta remains so controversial is that Roosevelt died so soon afterwards, in April 1945. Nobody knows whether he would have been able to make a success of the post-war peace if he had lived long enough. Some historians argue that his successor Harry S. Truman, 'tried to implement Yalta by changing it', and that the Cold War was caused as much by American policy failures as by any deliberate master plan of Stalin.

President Truman and the New World Order

Roosevelt's successor, Vice-President Harry S. Truman, was regarded as having little knowledge of or experience in foreign affairs, but he was plunged into major diplomatic problems. It would be up to Truman to negotiate with the Soviet Union over the fate of liberated Europe. At the same time, he had to bring an end to the war against Japan, something that still seemed a long way off in April 1945.

In July and August 1945, Truman met Stalin and Churchill at Potsdam near Berlin for the last of the great wartime summits. Negotiations were slow and difficult, with deep mutual suspicions between Stalin and the West. No final overall peace settlement could be agreed. Truman's efforts to reopen discussion about borders - which Stalin thought had been agreed previously at Yalta - got nowhere. Admirers of Truman

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have praised him for his firmness in 'standing up to Stalin' at Potsdam and after. Critics have argued that he was unnecessarily provocative and pushed Stalin too hard to make concessions.

On 24 July, during the Potsdam Conference, Truman received news of the successful test of the atomic bomb. This was kept secret from Stalin, even though he was-still an ally and the war against Japan was not yet over. (However, Stalin already knew about the bomb through his spy network.) Shortly after the Potsdam Conference broke up, the war with Japan was brought to a sudden end by the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

American possession of the bomb altered the balance of power. It alarmed Stalin and made the Soviet Union feel vulnerable. In the years that followed, the combination of American economic might and its monopoly over atomic weapons made the USA a dominant world power. In 1945, unlike in 1919-20, the nation was ready for its role as a superpower.

The USA was the occupying power in Japan, supervising the transition to democracy. The United Nations (UN) was formed, with strong American backing, at the San Francisco Conference. From 1944 onwards, American financiers took the lead in establishing new international economic and trade organisations. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were set up. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was strongly influenced by American policy from 1944. By the end of 1945, the involvement of the USA in shaping the post-war world was an accepted fact.

Why had the USA become a superpower by 1945?

Throughout the Second World War, the United States had been a full member of the Grand Alliance. They took part in the political and strategic discussions at Casablanca, Cairo and Tehran in 1943, at Yalta and at Potsdam. Unlike in the First World War, they were full Allies. But this time round, American involvement did not stop with the end of the war. The United States of America emerged from the Second World War as the world's leading nation, playing a full role in international affairs.

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Firstly, the American contribution to the War had been crucial in the victory. It has been said that Britain provided the time, the Russians provided the blood and the Americans provided the money - there is some truth in this. The sheer size of the American economy and productive capacity was incredible.

Fifteen million men and women served in the War; America produced 86,500 tanks, 300,000 aeroplanes and six million tons of bombs. The list goes on. Sixty per cent of the world's oil production and 50% of the world's steel production was American. Its GNP had doubled and the value of its agricultural land had increased by $2 billion. Rather than fall back into Depression, as many feared, the ending of the War saw the American economy continue to grow. By the end of the Second World War the USA was the economic superpower of the world.

The economy was also technologically advanced thanks to the new developments of the War. There were new military technologies, such as radar, but also others such as the development of synthetic fuels and fabrics. And, of course, there was the atom bomb, which for the moment was an American monopoly. This pre-eminence was added to by the destruction of Europe and Asia which the war had brought. Thirty million people had been killed (an incredible half of whom were Russian). There were more than 20 million refugees. Hundreds of cities and factories and acres of farmland throughout Europe and Asia had been destroyed. The economies of the European powers had been bankrupted by the cost of the War and their people were starving.

The great European empires were also being lost. The devastation left a power vacuum in the world, into which the Americans stepped. The crucial point was that this time round they were willing to do so. Even before the end of the War, the Atlantic Charter indicated a change of mood.

When the United Nations was set up in 1945 at the San Francisco Conference, the Senate voted 89-2 to accept the Charter and American membership. Americans were worried by worldwide commitments and there continued to be an isolationist pull on their foreign policy, but their view of themselves and of their position in the world had changed. They had fought a war in which they were clearly the 'good guys' and now their power would enable them to shape the new order in their own image.

Whether or not they would succeed, where Wilson had failed, remained to be seen. But there was no question that, in 1945, the United States was the superpower.

Exam questions and model answers

Exam tips

The cross-references are intended to take you straight to the material that will help you to answer the questions.

(a)

Explain why America adopted a policy of isolationism in the 1920s. (12 marks)

(a) You will need to explain the reasons for this policy with reference to:

• the USA's attitude to the First World War and the possibility of further European war • the desire to concentrate on developing US trade and industry

• the influence of the Republicans and Wilson's loss of control and attitudes towards the League of Nations.

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(b) How important was German U-boat activity in the Atlantic in America's decision to enter the Second World War? (24 marks)

This question invites you to consider a major factor in the USA's decision to enter the Second World War and to balance it against other factors, so deciding whether it was more important than other reasons or not.

Details of U-boat activity

other major factor - the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor,

However, you must not forget that there were other, longer term reasons, such as America's ties with Britain and the influence of Britain's apparent inability to maintain the war alone

You should also consider:

the attitude of Roosevelt, who, despite hating war, wanted to make USA the 'arsenal of democracy' lend-lease and its implications and Roosevelt's relationship with Churchill and the Atlantic Charter. Try to provide a full assessment of such issues to produce a well-rounded and convincing conclusion.

Exam tips

The cross-references are intended to take you straight to the material that will help you to answer the questions.

(a) Explain why the American economy grew significantly alter 1941. (12 marks)

Obviously the simple reason for the growth of the economy would be 'the demands of war time production', but you need to offer a range of inter linked reasons to demonstrate your full historical understanding.

You could refer to the longer term effects of the Depression and the 'low' starting point in both agriculture and industry, despite the New Deal, which paved the way for government intervention.

From 1941, disrupted trade forced the USA to become more self sufficient; government regulation and a fairer system of taxation, justified by war, enabled maximum production and more equitable distribution of funding to be achieved while the sheer scale of war encouraged efficiencies and the development of new technology.

(b) How far did America's participation in the Second World War affect society in the USA? (24 marks)

In order to answer this question, you need to consider how best to define and divide 'society'.

Different people were affected in different ways from the rich who 'lost out' through heavier taxation to the poor who, as a whole, grew comparatively more wealthy thanks to the industrial boom.

 The plight of the service personnel,

 Japanese Americans

 African Americans

 women

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23 (a) Explain the impact the WW2 had on American Society

 War demands forced the population to travel across the continent creating a ‘melting pot’ which involved them fighting in many parts of the world.

 Increase in industrial production  Marriages and birth rates went up

 War brought an end to unemployment problems

 Black Americans had demonstrated the power of mass action, and now had the beginnings of economic and political power.

 GI had some freedoms such as living allowances, educational opportunities

Why did Congress pass Neutrality Acts 1935-1937?

 Congress did not want to engage in hostilities and be drawn into a European war on any side.  traditional foreign policy was to remain isolationist

 to stop American citizens travelling on ships of warring nations  to stop firms supplying arms to belligerents

 to stop bankers giving loans to nations at war

To reach the higher levels, candidates will need to show the inter-relationship of the reasons given.

For example they might explain that Congress wanted to keep out of another war and they felt compelled to keep the USA neutral through a series of laws based on traditional foreign policy.

Why did the use of the atomic bomb in 1945 strengthened the USA’s position as a world power?  The USA was a world power because the War had not been fought on its territory and the atomic

power indicated its superiority in terms of weaponry

 the development of this technology before anyone else in 1945 made them into the first super power because they were technologically in advance of everyone else

 the use of the atomic bomb showed the rest of the world and especially Russia that the USA was to be feared since it was so much more powerful than conventional weapons

 the atomic bomb strengthened their ability to take on Communism anywhere in the world and impose their views/foreign policy.

b) How important was President Franklin Roosevelt to the development of the USA as a world power in the years 1933 to 1945?

Candidates should be able to make a judgement by balancing points supporting importance against others which do not.

Factors suggesting that President Franklin Roosevelt was important to the development of the USA as a world power in the years 1933 to 1945 might include:

 political factors – FDR made a number of important decisions which affected the status of the USA such as the Neutrality Acts in the 1930s. These meant the USA stayed out of the Second World War and could build itself up.

 entry into the Second World War. This enabled the USA to play a part in the war and show how powerful they were. The decision to concentrate on Europe before Asia in the war. This led to success in the war

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 military factor. He is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and the USA helped win the war in Asia and Europe

 economic factor. The New Deal. This started the USA off on its journey to world power after the Crash of 1929 because of FDR’s economic policy

 personal factor. Entry into the war was partly due to FDR’s friendship with Great Britain

technological factor. Roosevelt agreed to the Manhattan Project and construction of atomic bomb

Factors suggesting that President Franklin Roosevelt was not important to the development of the USA as a world power in the years 1933 to 1945 might include:

 political factor. FDR could not declare war without money agreed by Congress

 events such as the Second World War and the bombing on Pearl Harbour are actions that force the USA out onto the world stage by other nations

 the role of American public support is very important both on the home front and in fighting the Second World War

 technological factor. The money generated from the war means the USA can finance research and design policies such as the atomic bomb

 geographical factor. The fact the war is not fought on US soil means it can function and grow whilst Europe declines

 economic factor. Resources such as plentiful supplies of oil, coal, timber are important throughout 30s and up to 1945 because the USA is self-sufficient.

Good answers are likely to show awareness that it was not just President Roosevelt who brings about the development of the USA as a world power. However, his influence and decisions certainly lead the USA into a much more prominent role in the world but backed up by the rest of the USA.

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25 Essay:

Why was America a participant in the Second World War by December 1941?’ Suggested paragraph headings:

(a) Roosevelt's view of US security needs: (b) German actions and US reactions, 1933-41: (c) Japanese actions and US reactions. 1931-41.

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Era of the Second World War on the USA