CHAPTER 26
AMERICA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1939-1945

On 11 May 1942, 5 months after Pearl Harbor, General Jonathan Wainright and 11,500 American troops surrendered themselves and the Philippines to Japan. The US had obtained the Philippines from Spain in the 1899 Treaty of Paris. The events of 1942 proved that acquisition of the Philippines was a mistake, and that their retention might even lead to a war with Japan. Consider the following facts:

Fact #1: It took ships of the 1940's about 26 days cover the distance between Hawaii to the Philippines. A ship steaming from Japan could cover the distance in 5 days.

Fact #2: The Philippines lay on the shipping route between Japan and the oil rich Dutch East Indies. Japanese land, sea, and air forces would naturally target the Philippines to eliminate the possibility of being attacked by enemy naval and air forces while they steamed south.

Fact #3: In the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922, the US agreed to only fortify the island of Corregidor guarding the entrance to Manila Bay. There were not other major fortifications in the Western Pacific except for the British base at Singapore.

Add all these up and you have disaster. Japan crippled the US fleet at Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941. To secure its flank in the invasion of the Dutch East Indies, Japan attacked the Philippines one day after Pearl Harbor. Without significant fortifications and cut-off from help, the Philippine garrison could not hold out. It was a case of "strategic overstretch'; it was unrealistic to think the US navy could save the Philippines, or that the army could hold on to them in the event of war with Japan. US forces recaptured the Philippines after hard fighting between 23 October 1944 and 23 February 1945.

Japan, unable to trade with the US after FDR froze Japanese assets in July 1940, resorted to the final military solution to its natural resource dilemma. On 7 December 1941, air and sea forces of Imperial Japan attacked the US Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The US suffered 2,400 dead. For the time being, the fleet was crippled.

What other factors led to Pearl Harbor?

1. The Japanese knew they would lose naval supremacy by 1943. An attack against the US had to be made before it was too late.
2. A short war between Japan and Russia in 1939 deflected Japanese attention southward toward Australia instead of westward into Asia.
3. Japan had to eliminate US sea power before it could turn on oil, rubber and tin regions of Indonesia and Malaysia.
4. Japan is an island country lacking in natural resources. The militarists believed that Japan had to widen the arc of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity sphere if it was to survive as a nation.

Over the next 6 months it appeared that Japan could not be stopped. On 6 May 1942, 11,500 Americans surrendered the fortress of Corregidor and the Philippines fell. Not until Midway, June 1942, did was Japan handed its first defeat.

The Selective Service Act (1940) was the first peace time draft in American history. Congress set the paper strength of the Regular Army at 600,000. The act came after the news that German forces had defeated France in a campaign that lasted only 6 weeks.

The US entered WWI with fairly well defined war aims (goals). FDR wanted to avoid the great mistake of 1919-1920, when the US abdicated its leadership role in the World following WWI. As early as 6 January 1941, FDR expressed his vision of the world in his FOUR FREEDOMS speech . His idealistic phrases are listed below:

1. Freedom of speech and expression
2. Freedom of worship
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from Fear

At Placentia Bay, FDR and Churchill further articulated war aims. Below are the war aims as outlined in the ATLANTIC CHARTER, first issued at the Placentia Bay Conference, August 1941 (see picture at top of page):

1. Military defeat of Germany and Japan.
2. Contain leftist resistance movements in the occupied territories.
3. Decolonize the world once and for all. In other words, end imperialism.
4. Forge a new world order with the US standing at the center.
5. freedom of the seas.
6. disarmament of aggressor nations.
7. self-determination for all peoples.

Britain and the United States adopted the assumptions of RAINBOW-5, that stategy should be developed with the intention of defeating Germany first. However, the two allies based their stategies on two differing concepts: the direct vs. the indirect approach. Britain favored the latter, the US favored the former.

The British indirect approach called for ringing the German Reich with air bases, land forces, and a naval blockade while supporting resistance movements within the occupied countries (France, Holland, Yugoslavia, Norway, etc). The idea was to work on Germany like a Boa Constrictor works on its prey: slowly squeezing until it gives up or suffocates.

Until the D-Day, 6 June 1944, Allied strategy adhered to the British sview of the indirect approach. US forces co-operated with British troops in North Africa and Italy. The US 8th Air Force bombed targets in Germany from their air bases in England. On the Atlantic Ocean, US transports and destroyers waged war against the U-boat threat. All the while British and American agents assisted underground networks in the occupied countries.

Click Allied Strategy, 1938-1942 for a concept map presentation of Allied strategy during the early war years.

When the US contribution to the war became preponderant, the British gave in to American demands for the direct approach. The direct approach is an American strategy that dates back to the Civil War and called for a strategy that massed overwhelming forces in a single theater of operation aimed at the center mass of enemy forces. Unlike the Boa Constrictor, which gradually squeezes its victim to death, the direct approach strategy resembles a rattlesnake. A single venomous blow kills the prey quicker. Translated into the realities of WWII, the US strategy called for a landing ground forces somewhere in France. Here, Allied troops would fight against the main strength of the German army, destroy it, and advance to Berlin.

The shift in favor of the direct approach occurred when 5 British and American division crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. These landings were the long awaited "second front." No longer would it be just Russian forces hammering away at Nazi forces in the industrial zones of Europe. In May 1945 the war against Germany ended: American, British, and Russian forces were shaking hands on the banks of the Elbe River, 40 miles west of Berlin.

Click Allied Strategy 1943-1945 for a concept map presentation of Allied strategy during the latter years of WWII.

At the outset of WWII, a dedicated group of US air officers believed air power would shorten the war. Multi-engined bombers, they believed, could overfly armies and navies and drop explosives on urban production centers. Some of the main tenets of air power doctrine were expressed in a special annex to the RAINBOW-5 plans of 1938:

The United States Army Air Forces suffered 90,000 casualties waging the air war over Europe. In this stunning photo, a US bomber disintegrates under German fire. View taken from German gunsight camera. Such losses were reduced when the P-51 "Mustang" fighter made its appearance over the skies of Germany in January 1944.

Air power accelerated the rate of the German defeat, but did not end the war by itself.

Nineteen forty two was a pivotal year during WWII. Key events are listed below:

1. 3-6 June: US carrier forces defeat the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway. The tide of battle in the Pacific began to flow against Japan.
2. 23 October-5 November: The British 8th Army stops the German drive toward Alexandria Egypt at the Battle of El Alemein. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's last attempt to break through to the Suez Canal and the Middle East oil fields ends in failure. Within a year German and Italian forces disappear from North Africa.
3. Winter, 1942-1943: Soviet forces defeat the German 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad. The tide of battle began to flow against Adolf Hitler. 

WWII has triggered debate among scholars, politicians, and "beer & pretzel" war buffs. Next to the decision to drop the atomic bomb, none is as divisive as the "single thrust" vs. "broad front" debate.

Single thrust vs. broad front describes the two possible choices facing General Dwight D. Eisenhower as his multi-national force closed up on the German border in the Fall of 1944. These choices were as follows:

1. Give British General Montgomery's 21st Army Group all the manpower and resources necessary for a speedy "single thrust" aimed at Berlin, thus ending the war, or . . . .
2. Spread allied resources equally to all army group commanders approaching Germany, thus keeping the Germans busy all along their defensive line and liberating as much territory as possible but moving at much slower speed.

Eisenhower opted for choice #2. His critics contend he could have ended the war sooner and prevented the post war partition of Germany had he gone for Berlin with a single, knife-like thrust for Berlin. Why did Eisenhower opt for the slower moving "broad front" strategy?

1. It would keep German troops spread out instead of allowing them to concentrate against a single column.
2. For political reasons, US troops had to be occupied with fighting Germans. The US contribution to the war was so large that it wouldn't look good if the British got all the glory of taking Berlin.
3. Key German industrial regions, the Saar and Ruhr River Valley, lay south of the single thrust axis. Taking these regions regions required a broader advance into Germany.
4. Eisehnower's H.Q. heard tales of Nazi plans to retreat to the mountains of Bavaria and dare the Allies to get them out. Later intelligence shoed the the Nazi "National Redoubt" was an illusion, but in 1945 Eisenhower decided he had to maintain contact with German to prevent them from breaking away to the mountains.
5. At the Yalta Conference, February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and FDR agreed that the dividing line between Russian and Allied forces would be the Elbe River, 40 miles west of Berlin. There would be no point fighting for Berlin when the political leaders had already made a decision that Allied forces would pull back to the Elbe.

SOURCE: Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe River (New York: W.W. Norton, 1967, 1986).

The US achieved spectacular production results during the war, but fumbled command arrangements in the Pacific. US command in the Pacific theater, unlike in Europe, was divided. Divided command between General Douglas MacArthur (army) and Admiral Chester Nimitz (navy) resulted from political considerations and inner-service rivalry. This command arrangement made war making less effective and prolonged the war. A British observer made the following comment: "The violence of inter-service rivalry in the United States in these days had to be seen to be believed and was an appreciable handicap to their war effort."

Rivalry between the services was indeed intense. Neither the army or the navy wanted to be placed under the overall command of the other. On top of that, FDR did not know what to do with the eccentric MacArthur, so a Pacific command was created for him. Noted historian John Ellis suggests the Pacific War might have been brought to speedier conclusion if MacArthur's southern thrust against Japan was given full priority and either he or Nimitz were appointed as supreme commander.

SOURCE: John Ellis, Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War (New York: Viking Press, 1990), 500-517.

The last Japanese offensive of the war occured in China, resulting in the loss of B-29 bomber bases for the US. But in July-August 1944, US marines and naval forces captured Guam, Tinian, and Saipan in the Marianas island chain. These islands, 1,300 miles from Japan, enabled the XX Bomber Command to continue raids on the Japanese home islands.

[d.1]

The twin atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 & 9 August 1945) ushered in the nuclear age. Historian Gar Alperovitz launched serious debate when he alleged that the US dropped the bomb to send a message to the Russians warning them to stay out of east Asia. If Alperovitz is correct, the atomic attacks served no military purpose. Some of Alperovitz's evidence is listed below:

1. US strategic bombing survey reports all indicate that Japan was a defeated nation. Production was down 75% from its 1939 level, and the Japanese merchant marine was down 90% of its prewar strength.
2. Japanese garrisons in the Pacific were cut-off and isolated.
3. The Japanese air force and navy ceased to exist.
4. Japanese ministers were trying to surrender, but bureaucratic interference prevented the US from taking advantage of Japanese peace feelers.

OK, what options did US policy makers have?

1. Continue to bomb and blockade the Japanese home islands.
2. Give assurances that the Japanese emperor would not be tried as a war criminal, thus inducing the Japanese to surrender.
3. Invade the Japanese home islands (operation OLYMPIC) slated for November 1945.
4. Demonstrate the power of the bomb to a Japanese delegation on a remote Pacific island.
5. Let the Russians invade Japanese-held territory in China, thus bringing about a rapid conclusion to the war.
6. Drop the bomb on a military target in Japan.

What were Trumans advisors telling him to do?

Against use of the bomb:

General Hap Arnold	Chief of Staff, U.S. Army Air Forces
Admiral William Leahy	Roosevelt's and Truman's military advisor
General Dwight D. Eisenhower	Supreme Commander, Allief Forces in Europe
Admiral Ernest King	Commander of the United States Fleet (rankiningest officer in navy)
Leo Szilard	atomic scientist, Manhattan Project

Approved use of the bomb:

Henry Byrnes	Secretary of State
General Leslie Groves	military head of the Manhattan Project
Curtis LeMay	Commander, XX and XXI Bomber Commands, Pacific Theater
James Conant	President, MIT
Vannevar Bush	President, Harvard
Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller	Atomic scientists, Manhattan Project. They believed bomb should be used in combat, but disagreed on the exact conditions of use.
Henry Stimson	Secretary of War. He may have opposed use of bomb, but after the war he refused to disagree with Interim Committee's decision

Why did the Truman choose option #6 above?

1. The US did not welcome Soviet involvement in the Pacific theater peace settlement. A demonstration of US willingness to use the bomb would make the Russians take US demands seriously.

The Allies met several times during WWII to discuss strategy and political arrangements. Pictured to the left are Stalin, FDR, and Churchill at the Tehran Converence, 1953. The list below names the key conferences and the issues discussed.

WWII CONFERENCES
CONFERENCE	DATE	WHO MET	RESOLUTIONS
Placentia Bay	August 1941	FDR & Churchill	1) Atlantic Charter proclaimed; 2) FDR assures Churchill US will make Hitler #1 priority if it comes to war.
Washington Conference	December January 1941-42	British and US military planners	"Germany First" (RAINBOW-5) strategy confirmed.
Casablanca	January 1943	FDR & Churchill	Operation TORCH (invasion of North Africa) confirmed.
Tehran	November 1943	FDR, Churchill, & Stalin	Second Front to be opened by invasion of France in Spring 1944.
Yalta	February 1945	FDR, Churchill, & Stalin	1) Stalin allegedly gives assurances of free postwar elections in Poland; 2)Stalin promises to declare war on Japan; 3) Unconditional surrender formula reiterated;
Potsdam	July 1945	Truman, Atlee, & Stalin	1) Unconditional surrender formula applies to Japan; 2) Berlin to be divided into 4 occupational zones; 3) US alludes to power of the atomic bomb.

• Grolier WWII Commemoration
• Grolier WWII Links
• FDR's War Address
• World War II--Mississippi State
• Pacific Naval Battles in World War II
• Powers of Pursuasian Exhibit
• U-Boat War
• Von Reitch Panzer Homepage
• Japanese American Exhibit and Access Project
• The Decision to Evacuate the Japanese from the West Coast
• Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence at the National Archives
• Pobeditelli (Russian Timeline of WWII)
• Army at Dawn (interactive map that support Atkinson book)