7.13: Military Strategy

Question 1

VIEW OF WAR

Answer 1

• Office of War Information controlled news and promoted war goals
• Propaganda, Voice of America network and Hollywood movies
• Racialized portrayal of enemies

Question 2

PACIFIC THEATER

Answer 2

• Location of initial US effort
• Japanese victory initially
• 1942: Battle of Coral Sea and Battle of Midway turned tides
• Allowed US to push Japanese back from their key Pacific conquered territories
• Landed on small islands and cut off supply to heavily fortified Japanese islands
• April 1945: FDR dies amid plans for offensive against Japan
• Truman into office and assigned defeating Japanese
• Truman briefed on Manhattan Project and decided above needed to force Japanese surrender
• August 6th 1945 [Hiroshima] and August 9th 1945 [Nagasaki]
• 140,000 deaths in 2 months
• Moral: Japanese would never surrender otherwise, Japanese had committed war crimes [Bataan Death March] and land invasion too costly
• Immoral: victims were civilians
• September 2 1945: VJ day
• 1942: Bataan Death March: 60-80,000 Filipino and American POWs marched 70 miles w/ 15,000 casualties

Question 3

EUROPEAN THEATER

Answer 3

• Russia taking brunt of war and encouraged US to open Western Front
• Nov 1943: Tehran Conference: Churchill, Stalin and FDR talk Western Front
• June 6 1944: D-Day Invasion
• 200,000 Allied forces onto German-controlled Normandy beaches
• 1 million+ troops join
• Germans pushed back
• France liberated
• 1944-1945: Battle of the Bulge
• Hitler’s final offensive
• Drove wedge between Allies in Belgium
• Strategy failed but casualties on both sides
• April 30 1945: Hitler commits
• May 7 1945: German surrender and VE day
• Holocaust killed 6 million Jews

Question 4

MILITARY

Answer 4

• Ignorance of black Medal of Honor recs
• 1948: Executive Order 9981: desegregated armed forces
• U-boat detection helped by development of radar
• Jammed radio-controlled torpedoes by frequency hopping signals