WWII Americans at War - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 69
About This Presentation
Title:

WWII Americans at War

Description:

WWII Americans at War 1941 - 1945 Yalta: Where the Peace went wrong FDR, Churchill, Stalin met to discuss the peace. Yalta: Where the Peace went wrong Plan was to ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:346
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 70
Provided by: Carol444
Category:
Tags: wwii | americans | dead | war

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: WWII Americans at War


1
WWIIAmericans at War
  • 1941 - 1945

2
How do you gear up for a war?
  • Boosted defense spending from 2 billion to 10
    billion.
  • Encouraged enlistment.
  • Selective Training and Service Act
  • All males 21 36.

3
The GI War
  • Government Issue
  • Applied to all soldiers, sailors and aviators.

4
Diversity in the Armed Forces
  • 300,000 Mexican Americans
  • Million African Americans
  • 25, 000 Native Americans.
  • 350,000 Women

5
NativeAmericans in the Military
  • The US needed a code to communicate that the
    Japanese couldnt break.
  • US intelligence bet the Japanese never bothered
    to learn about Native American languages.
  • Wind Talkers / Code Talkers
  • Mostly Navajo

6
African Americans in the Military
  • At first officials limited African Americans to
    supporting roles
  • Cooks, drivers, garbage pick up
  • After 1942 gave opportunities to fight.
  • Separate units
  • Tuskegee Airmen

7
Women in the military
  • Personnel shortage allowed women into all
    positions EXCEPT combat.
  • Clerks, typists, air traffic control, mechanics,
    photographers, drivers.
  • Towed practice targets for anti-aircraft gunners.

8
Preparing an Economy for War
  • With Japan controlling the Pacific the US was cut
    off from VITAL raw materials
  • Rubber
  • Oil
  • Tin

9
Preparing an Economy for War
  • Thanks to the New Deal the government had
    tremendous power over the economy.
  • WPB War Production Board
  • Convert peacetime industries to produce war
    materials.
  • Cars to building bomber planes

10
Preparing an Economy for War
  • By 1944 American production levels doubled those
    of all the Axis powers together.
  • 1945
  • 300,000 planes
  • 80,000 landing craft
  • 100,000 armored cars and tanks
  • 6 million rifles
  • 41 BILLION rounds of ammunition!

11
Wartime Work Force
  • War production ended any lasting Depression
    unemployment.
  • Wages rose by 50 between 1940 1945.
  • Mostly women workers
  • Theres a war on, you know!
  • Rosie the Riveter

12
Financing the War
  • 1939 US govt. spending was 8.9 billion.
  • 1945 US govt. spending was 95.2 billion!!!!

13
How did we pay for the war?
  • 41 paid for by higher taxes
  • Urged people and businesses to buy war bonds.
  • Loans of your money to government.
  • Pay back date with interest for the loan.

14
How did we pay for the war?
  • Went further into debt!
  • 1940 deficit spending made the US debt 43
    billion.
  • 1945 - 259 billion in debt!

15
Daily Life on the Home Front
  • Practically every family had someone in the war.
  • 30-million people moved.
  • Soldiers moved
  • Families of soldiers moved
  • People moved to take jobs
  • BUT the population grew by 7.5 million 1940
    1945.
  • Double the rate of the 1930s.

16
Shortages and Controls
  • Workers were making
  • But there was really nothing to spend it on.

17
Shortages
  • Zippers
  • Typewriters
  • Rubber
  • Nylon stockings
  • Anything that had metal, rubber or nylon was
    needed for the war.

18
Food Shortages too
  • Between troop needs and enemy stopping supply
    lines.
  • Sugar
  • Tropical fruits
  • Coffee
  • Chocolate

19
OPA Office of Price Administration
  • When demand is greater than supply prices go
  • UP!
  • INFLATION!
  • Had to limit prices.

20
OPA decided the prices for
  • Sugar
  • Coffee
  • Meat
  • Butter
  • Canned food
  • Shoes
  • Gas

21
Ration Books
  • Coupons with certain values allotted goods for
    the month.
  • Based on family size
  • Did consider distance and needs of farmers

22
Popular Culture
  • Looking for ways to spend money
  • Movies
  • Radio
  • Books and magazines
  • Ballgames with female players

23
Enlisting Public Support
  • Office of War Information
  • Writers and artists created posters and ads that
    stirred Americans patriotic feelings.

24
What civilians were encouraged to do
  • Older men join the Civilian Defense effort
  • Kids Scrap metal drives
  • Women
  • Grow Victory Gardens
  • Knit scarves and socks for the war
  • Roll bandages for the Red Cross

25
Motto
  • Play YOUR Part
  • Conserve and Collect
  • Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without

26
Nebraska Note The North Platte Canteen
  • December 25, 1941 April 1, 1946
  • Served 6-million servicemen served sandwiches,
    coffee, cookies and cakes during stops.

27
(No Transcript)
28
Retaking Europe (Section 2)
  • Roosevelt and Churchill met in August 1941 to
    decide what the goals of their alliance would be.

29
The Atlantic Charter
  • There would be no enlargement of territories.
  • Freedom of people to choose their government
  • Final destruction of the Nazis.

30
Battle of the Atlantic
  • How to get supplies to the British?
  • Wolf Packs
  • 20 U boats that hunted enemy convoys in packs.
  • Took out 175 allied ships in 1942 alone.
  • Some in sight of the US coastline.

31
How to combat the wolf packs?
  • SONAR (kinda worked)
  • Long range sub hunting aircraft
  • Better depth charges
  • Cut off U Boats from their ports in Germany and
    France.

32
The Major Players of the Atlantic War Western
Front European Theatre
  • Churchill Prime Minister of England
  • Roosevelt US President
  • Josef Stalin Chairman of Soviet Union

33
Players for the Fascists
  • Hitler Germany
  • Mussolini - Italy

34
The Generals Allies
  • Dwight Ike Eisenhower (1890 1969)
  • Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces
  • Excelled at
  • Staffing issues
  • Diplomacy

35
The Generals United States
  • George Patton 1885 1945.
  • As a boy knew he wanted to be a hero.
  • LOVED war.
  • Early on realized the potential for tanks.
  • Did NOT have good diplomacy skills.

36
The Generals Allies
  • Englands Field Marshal Montgomery
  • Not a particularly great general but he made
    sure people thought he was great.

37
The BRILLIANT Nazi Generals
  • Rommel The Desert Fox
  • Erwin Rommel (1891 1944)
  • Great tank commander
  • Used surprise and bold moves.
  • Was NOT a member of the Nazi party

38
The North Africa Campaign
  • February 1943 US had their butts kicked by the
    Nazis.
  • May 1943 US came back, defeated Nazis and took
    240,000 German and Italians prisoners.
  • 2000 ended up in POW camps in Nebraska.

39
Invasion of Italy Start of Retaking Europe
  • 7th Army under Patton took Sicily and the English
    started to invade the mainland of Italy.

40
Invasion of Italy
  • Mussolinis Fascists turned against him.
  • Nazis rescued Mussolini
  • Set him up in a Puppet Government in northern
    Italy

41
It sure wasnt over yet!
  • Battle of Anzio and Cassino trapped Americans and
    English and went from January May 1944.
  • Allies v. German Nazis
  • April 1945 Italy was in Allied control.

42
The End for Mussolini
  • Caught by the Italians as he tried to leave Italy
    and escape to Germany.
  • Ended by the Italians.

43
The War in the Soviet Union
  • The Germans advance in Russia 1941 1942.
  • Blitzkrieg
  • Nazis were first greeted as liberators by the
    ethnic nationalities in Russia.
  • They hated Stalin.

44
The War in the Soviet Union
  • Nazis turned on the local people.
  • Executions
  • Forced labor
  • People engaged in guerrilla actions against the
    Nazis.

45
Russias Fight
  • Guerrilla Warfare
  • Scorched Earth Policy
  • Stalin BEGGED Roosevelt and Churchill to invade
    Western Europe to take some pressure off the Red
    Army.

46
Russias BEST weapon
  • The Russian winter

47
Important Soviet Battles
  • Battle of Stalingrad
  • September 1942 January 1943

48
Important Soviet Battles
  • Siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg today)

49
Battle of Stalingrad
  • 330,000 Nazi dead
  • 90,000 Nazi prisoners taken
  • BUT
  • 1,100,000 dead Russians to make it happen.
  • Nazis lost their holdings in Russia.

50
The Allied Air War
  • B-17s Flying Fortress
  • Carpet Bombing
  • 40,000 died in one day in Hamburg, Germany

51
The Invasion of Western Europe
  • Time to go after the Nazis in Germany.

52
But where do we start from???
53
Invasion of Western Europe D-Day
  • June 6, 1944 some 4,600 invasion craft left
    England for France.
  • 150,000 soldiers
  • 1,000 RAF aircraft dropped 23,000 paratroopers in
    France

54
D-Day Why June 6th?
  • Rommels wifes birthday!
  • Took the chance he would go to be with her.
  • He took the bait!

55
D-Day Largest landing by sea in history
  • Omaha Beach
  • Utah Beach

56
D-Day Omaha Beach
  • Killing Zone
  • 12 major resistance nests that reigned fire down
    over every inch of the beach.
  • IF they made it to the beach.

57
D-Day Omaha Beach
  • If you made it to the beach
  • If you made it across the beach
  • You had to climb up a cliff to reach the Germans.

58
D-Day Utah Beach
  • Landing was hard currents.
  • Trouble happened later.
  • Hedgerow fighting

59
D-Day
  • 3,000 American, British casualties
  • 2,000 German casualties
  • By the next week 500,000 Allies were in France.

60
Liberating France
  • Patton used a Blitzkrieg to blow a hole through
    the Germans to advance out of Normandy.
  • With French Resistance they liberated Paris
    August 25, 1944.

61
The Battle of the Bulge Germany fights back
  • December 1944 Germans cut off part of the
    American army from the main group.
  • Patton did an amazing movement in winter of
    troops to save the American forces.
  • 600,000 GI soldiers involved
  • 80,000 killed, wounded
  • 100,000 Germans killed

62
The War in Europe Ends
  • Stalins Red Army approaching Germany from the
    East.
  • British, American and French approaching from the
    West.
  • March 1945

63
The War in Europe Ends
  • Russia was out for revenge for Nazi atrocities
    committed against them.
  • 18- MILLION dead Russians.

64
Crossing the Elbe River
  • April 25, 1945
  • US and Russian troops joined up and pushed on
    into Berlin

65
Germany Surrenders V-E Day!
  • April 30, 1945 Hitler commits suicide.
  • May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders
  • V-E Victory in Europe.

66
Yalta Where the Peace went wrong
  • FDR, Churchill, Stalin met to discuss the peace.

67
Yalta Where the Peace went wrong
  • Plan was to divide German territories and Berlin
    into four zones, each controlled by an Ally
    England, US, France, Russia.
  • Repair the economy
  • Rid the zone of Nazis
  • Hold free elections
  • Get out after repairs are done.

68
(No Transcript)
69
Yalta
  • Stalin didnt keep to the agreement.
  • Punished the Germans
  • Stole what was left of the economy
  • Did NOT hold free elections.
  • Put puppet communist regimes in.
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com