WWII ( )

Americans Join the War Effort  Post Pearl Harbor  Americans eager to join  5 million volunteer for military service  Selective Service System  Drafted additional 10 million  8 weeks basic training

Production Miracle  February 1942: The last automobile for private use produced  Retooled to produce tanks, planes, boats, command cars  Mechanical Pencil Factories: Bomb parts  Bedspread manufacturer: bottle filling, explosive shell filling  Henry J. Kaiser, Liberty Ships  Cargo carriers, tankers, troop transports, baby aircraft carriers

Mobilization Scientists  Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)  Improvements in radar, sonar, pesticides, “miracle drugs”  Largest Achievement (1941)  Atomic Bomb is possible!  Manhattan Project: 1942 program established to develop ASAP

Federal Government Takes Control  Office of Price Administration: Price freeze  Income tax raise  Millions of people now must pay who never had before  War Production Board  Ration of fuel and materials such as gasoline, heating oil, metals, plastic

The War for Europe and North Africa

Battle in the Atlantic  German Uboats  Beginning of 1942: Hitler sank 87 ships  By the end of 1942: 681 allied ships sunk  Convoys established  Groups of ships travelling together for mutual protection  Accompanied by aircraft  Turning Point  Liberty Ships out produced number sunk each month

The Battle of Stalingrad  November 1941: Germans turn South in Soviet Union  the Weather!  Hitler’s Priorities:  Soviet Oil Fields in Caucasus Mountains  Wipe out Stalingrad  August 1942: Germany controls 9/10ths of Stalingrad  Luftwaffe raids  Hand to hand combat  But winter comes again..  Surrender January 31 st, 1943

Operation Torch  Led by Dwight D. Eisenhower  Attack on Axis controlled North Africa  Germans trapped in Tunisia  November May 1943

Italian Campaign  North Africa Won  Only unconditional surrender of enemies will do  Italy will be the target  Summer 1943: Capture of Sicily  July 25 th : Il Duce is stripped of power  February-May 1944: Bloody Anzio  25,000 Allied  30,000 Axis

The Liberation of Europe  D-Day aka Operation Overlord, June 6 th 1944  3 Million British, American, Canadians  Normandy (Northern France)  Air and sea bombardment

D-Day (June 6, 1944)

The Liberation of Europe (Cont.)  7 Days of Fighting  Allies attain 80 mile beach strip  1 million more troops able to land  170,000 vehicles  St. Lo: massive air raid  August 1944: Paris is liberated from four years of German Occupation (Vichy France)  Belgium and Luxemburg quickly freed

Battle of Bulge  October 1944: Aachen captured  First German town  Hitler reordered his troops to capture Antwerp, Belgium  December 16 th : German tanks make a bulge and break in the American and British troops  1 month of fighting  irreplaceable damage  Germans lost 120,000 troops  600 tanks and assault guns  1,600 planes

Unconditional Surrender in Europe  April 25 th, 1945: Soviets storm Berlin  Hitler retreats to underground HQ  April 29 th  Marries Eva Braun  Final address to the Germany  Blames Jews for starting and Generals for losing the war “I die with a happy heart aware of the immeasurable deeds of soldiers at the front. I myself and my wife choose to die in order to escape the disgrace of capitulation…”

V-E Day: May 8 th, 1945 Declaration by General Eisenhower