World War II

In May 1940 Winston Churchill assumed the office of Prime Minister in Great Britain. Far from widely admired by his countrymen, Churchill played a major role in bringing the US into the war, partly because of his personal relationship with FDR.

In 1941 high-level staffs of the US and Britain held secret talks in Washington, D.C., and agreed on strategy for war in the event the USA did join in the fight against Germany – and even against Japan. Known as the ABC-1 Plan it called for first concentrating on defeating Germany, then taking on Japan.

The major tension, however, was in Asia. Japan began to use airfields in Indochina and joined the Rome-Berlin Axis. As a countermove, the US froze Japanese assets.

Hideki Tojo (Prime Minister of Japan) sent a special envoy to the US demanding the US release Japanese assets. American side countered with a proposal for Japanese withdrawal from China and Indochina.

On December 7, Japanese carrier-cases planes attacked the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor

At 7.55 Honolulu time, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor. 19 US ships (including 6 battleships) were sunk or disabled; some 150 planes were destroyed; 2403 soldiers, sailors and civilians were killed, 1178 were wounded. Other Japanese planes and ships attacked US bases in the Philippines, Guam and Midway, as well as British bases in Hong Kong and the Malay Peninsula. On December 8, Congress declared a state of war with Japan; three days later Germany and Italy declared war in the US. (The Senate voted to approve war 82 – 0, the House of Representatives 388 – 1 (pacifist Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected a Representative voted against)).

The nation rapidly geared itself for mobilization of its people and its entire industrial capacity. The slogan “Remember Pearl Harbor!” became the rallying cry for the US until the surrender of the Japanese. Roosevelt declared December 7 “a day that shall live in infamy.” The nation raised money and created new industries for mass production of ships, armored vehicles and planes. The US brought the armed forces up to a total of 15,100,000.

Pearl Harbor attack and the fear of Asian espionage made Americans also committed an act of intolerance: in February 1942, nearly 120,000 Japanese-American residing in California were interned behind barbed wire in 10 wretched temporary camps, later to be moved to “relocation centers” outside isolated Southwestern towns. The internment camps were in Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. Nearly 63% of those people were Nisei – American-born – and, therefore, US citizens. Soon special army units of Nisei were allowed that performed exemplary duty. In 1983 the US government acknowledged the injustice of internment with limited payments to still living Japanese-Americans.

The Western Allies concentrated their military effort in Europe, the Pacific theater was secondary.

In the spring and summer of 1942, British forces broke the German drive aimed at Egypt and pushed General Erwin Rommel back into Lybia, ending the threat to the Suez Canal.

On November 7. 1942, an American army landed in French North Africa and inflicted severe defeats on Italian and German armies. The year 1942 was the turning point on the Western Front (Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad battles).

In July 1943 British and American forces invaded Sicily, and by late summer the Southern shore of Mediterranean was cleared of Fascist forces. Mussolini was forced to resign.

On June 14, 1944, Rome was liberated.

Late in 1943 it was decided to open a Western front to force the Germans to divert for larger forces from Russian front. In December General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.

On June 6, 1944, the first contingents of a US, British and Canadian invasion army, landed on the beaches of Normandy in Northern France.

D-Day

D-Day (Disembarkation Day) Operation Overload began just after midnight with the descent of two US airborne divisions, and in the early hours of the morning with some 4,000 invasion ships plus 600 warships, at least 10,000 planes (only one of which was shot down by the German Air Force) and about 176,000 Allied troops. The landing took place along a series of beaches in Normandy between Cherbourg and LeHavre, and although the Germans had had some warnings they had not concentrated in a unified strategy. Despite heavy casualties in some sectors – the US lost at least 1000 men on Omaha Beach – by the end of the first day there were some 150,000 Allied troops dug in as well as thousands of vehicles and many tons of materials.

The Allied Armies began to move across France toward Germany. On August 25 Paris was liberated. By February and March 1945, troops advanced into Germany from the west, the Russian army from the east. On May 8, 1945, all that remained of the Third Reich surrendered its land, sea and air forces.

The war in the Pacific was continuing at the same time. General James “Jimmy” Doolitle led US army bombers on a raid over Tokyo in April 1942. The raid had little military significance but produced an immense psychological boost.

In the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, the Japanese navy incurred such heavy losses that they were forced to give up the idea of striking at Australia. The Battle of Midway in June in the central Pacific Ocean became the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

The war in the Pacific continued after Germany’s surrender. The Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 wreaked havoc on the Japanese navy. The Battle of Leyte Gulf resulted in a decisive defeat of the Japanese navy. General McArthure who left the Philippines in March 1942 kept his promise: “I shall return”.

By February 1945, US forces had taken Manila. Next, the US began to fight for the island of Iwo Jima fiercely defended by the Japanese who practiced kamikaze suicide attacks from the sky. By mid-March at the cost of life of 6,000 US Marines and nearly all the Japanese forces the island had been taken. In July 1944 the Democrats nominated FDR for an unprecedented fourth term as president. Some of his staff and insiders were generally aware of his failing health and urged the vice-president be a man of acceptable to a broad majority of Americans in case anything were to happen to Roosevelt. That figure was Harry S. Truman from Missouri.

In November 1944 FDR won the fourth term (432 to 99 for Thomas E. Dewey). On April 12, 1945 at Warm Springs, Georgia, President Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died.

At Potsdam from July 17 to August 2, 1945, the heads of the US, Britain and the Soviet Union discussed operations against Japan and a policy for the future of Germany. The conference agreed on the broad principles of restoring the political life in Germany, decided on the trail of Nazi leaders accused of crimes against humanity and some other factors.

The day before the Potsdam Conference began an atomic bomb was exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico. This was the result of three years intensive research of the so-called Manhattan Project. President Truman ordered the bomb be used if the Japanese did not surrender by August 3.

A committee of US military and political officials and scientists considered the question of targets for the new weapon. Truman demanded only military installations should be targeted. Secretary of War Henry L. Stinson proved to save Kyoto (Japan’s ancient capital). Hiroshima, a center of war industries and military operations, was chosen.

On August 6, a US plane the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb (nicknamed Thin Man) on the city of Hiroshima. On August 8, a second atomic bomb (nicknamed Fat Man) was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 14, Japan agreed to the terms set at Potsdam. On September 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered.

In November 1945 at Nuremberg, Germany, the criminal trials of Nazi leaders provided for at Potsdam took place. Before a group of distinguished jurists from Britain, France, the USSR and the USA, the Nazis were accuses not only of plotting and waging aggressive war but also of violating the laws of war in the systematic genocide, known as the Holocaust, of European Jews and other people. The trial lasted more than 10 months and resulted in the conviction of all but three of the accused.

On April 25, 1945, at San Francisco, representatives of 50 nations met to draw up a document which established the United Nations Organization. This time the US Senate promptly ratified the UN Charter by 89 to 2 votes.