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Chapter 8. War in Africa and Europe
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor woke the “sleeping giant.” Americans could not wait to go after and defeat Japan. However, FDR and America’s greatest ally Great Britain led by Winston Churchill believed that the real threat to the United States was Hitler’s Germany. While FDR did not publicly proclaim it, he took a “Europe First” strategy and relegated the Pacific War to a “Second Place” status in strategy and support. The United States spent much of the first few years of war preparing to invade and liberate Europe from Hitler’s grasp and offering assistance to the Allies in war materiel and food. This meant, that for the majority of America’s involvement in the war, 1941-1945, American boots were not on the ground in Europe. Part of the reason for this, was that the United States was not in immediate threat from invasion from Germany. A second reason for this was the importance the Western culture of America placed on life. FDR did not want to risk American life until he was sure that the United States would win. The Allies believed their best chance in defeating the Axis Powers was in In North Africa. In May 1942, the Axis Powers controlled Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Vichy France, the Nazi Germany collaborationist France, controlled Morocco and Algeria. Italy controlled Tunisia. Great Britain controlled Egypt and with it the Suez Canal. The Allies wanted to defeat Italy, turn the Vichy France North Africa over to the Allies, and secure that the Suez Canal would not fall under the Axis Powers. From June 11, 1940 – May 13, 1943, the Axis and Allies fought over North Africa. Great Britain provided the leadership and most of the manpower, with the Free French and the United States assisting. In 1940, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France and the Italians attacked Egypt. After initial losses, the English counterattacked and captured 130,000 Italians. Hitler sent General Ernst Rommel and the German Afrika Corps. Over the next years, the Germans and the British alternated between advancing and retreating. After the United States joined the war, in November, 1942, American General Dwight D. Eisenhower landed his forces in Morocco and Algeria. After initially fighting, the Vichy French agreed to not fight against the Allies. Eisenhower was victorious at Oran, Algiers, and Casablanca. The Americans and British coordinated their attacks against the Axis Powers and encircled the Germans and Italians in Tunis. On May 12, 1943, 250,000 German and Italian troops surrendered. Of the victory, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The Battle of the Atlantic The United States of America fought World War II in America, Hawaii, Europe, Africa, in the Pacific Islands, Asia, and on the oceans. A key part of this war was winning control of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was the passageway for soldiers and war materiel and food from the United States to Great Britain and then onto Europe. As an island country, Great Britain was dependent on imports. During the war, it required more than a million tons of imports per week to survive and fight. The Allies used Great Britain as a staging ground for the invasion of Europe. Without control of the Atlantic, there would be no Allied victory. The Battle of the Atlantic was essential in winning the war. It pitted the English Navy and American merchant ships against the Germany Navy, which primarily consisted of surface warships and their very successful submarines, known as U-boats. Germany had great naval successes in the first years of World War II. U-boat crews called June 1940-February 1941 “The Happy Time.” U-boat crews hunted their prey in "wolf packs," attacking shipping as a team. U-boat crews sunk over 500 Allied ships. The British lost the French fleet, the fourth strongest in the world, when Germany conquered France in the summer of 1940. Germany had decoded British messages, and U-boat crews were able to estimate where Allied ships were. Radar still had not developed enough to aid the Allies to see where the U-boats were. After America joined the war, the Germans sent five U-boats to the east coast of America. In less than a month from January 13 to February 6, 1942, U-boats had destroyed 156,939 tons of shipping without loss. By mid-1942, Allies had developed strategies that eventually won the Battle of the Atlantic over the next year. The Royal Navy used the convoy system to accompany merchant ships across the Atlantic. Allied warships protecting merchant ships could defend against the U-boats. Allies developed radar to see underwater, using this new technology on ships and in airplanes. In 1942, Allies captured the Enigma, the German secret code machine used by the U-boat commanders. Allies knew when and where U-boats were sent out to sea, and it was easier to hunt them. The Eastern Front The country that experienced the most deaths in World War II was the one most responsible for destroying the battle-hardened and technically capable German Army. Adolf Hitler shocked Joseph Stalin when he launched a war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Germans and Soviets had signed a non-aggression pact, but Hitler just used that to avoid a two-front war. After Germany conquered France in six weeks, he fully believed he would quickly take Russia. Over the next six months, German Armies advanced on an 800-mile front east. Once winter set in, however, and the Russians regrouped, Germany saw devastating losses at the Battles of Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, and in the long retreat back to Germany. Throughout the war, the Soviet Union fought 75-80% of German forces. The Jupiter Complex The Axis and Allied Powers introduced a new way of fighting in World War II: massive aerial bombing. Germany was first to begin this tactic, hitting civilian locations in Poland, the Low Countries, France, and then Britain. But as the war continued, the Allies used its superiority of industry and technology to inflict massive damage on the enemy. A British historian named this war strategy the “Jupiter Complex,” because as the Roman god reigned lightning on humans, the Allied war machines reigned bombs. As soon as it could, the Americans and British ran non-stop bombing raids over Axis positions. Americans bombed during the day and the British bombed at night. Once the war turned in favor of the Allies, the devastation wrought on the Axis Powers was hard to fathom, but it is also important to note it would have immediately stopped if Germany would have surrendered. Instead, Hitler seemed intent on fighting until Germany was obliterated. Total war dead from bombing is as follows: Allies: 749,940 – 1,305,029 Axis: 790,509-1,693,374 China: 260,000-351,000 Germany: 353,000-635,000 Soviet Union: 51,526-500,000 United States: 79,265 airmen/personnel Poland: 50,000 France: 67,000 The Tehran Conference, November 1943 By November, 1943, it was clear the Allies would defeat the Axis Powers in Europe. The Russians were chasing the Germans in retreat, albeit slowly and with great casualties. The British, Americans, and Free French had won North Africa, and the invasion of Italy was underway. The Allies had the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic. American superiority in war materiel production was affecting every front of the war, as it supplied Allies with arms, food, clothing, and all war materiel. To plan the rest of the war, the “Big Three,” which were Great Britain’s Winston Churchill, the United States’ FDR, and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, met it Tehran, Iran. At the Tehran Conference and two later meetings, negotiations and decisions among these three leaders spelled disaster for much of the post war world. Churchill had a complete and correct understanding of Communist Soviet Union’s and Stalin’s ruthlessness. He tried in vain to educate FDR. FDR, however, as historian Paul Johnson writes in A History of the American People, “tended, like many intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals of his time, to take the Soviet Union at its face value – a peace-loving People’s Democracy.” FDR distrusted his American advisors who reported negatively about Stalin. Stalin had, in fact, been responsible for the murder of tens of millions of Russians and was one of the world’s most brutal dictators. FDR, though, surrounded himself with pro-Communist and pro-Stalin advisors, notably his ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies, and his personal advisor, Harry Hopkins. FDR represented the strongest power, and Churchill had to go along with his decisions. At Tehran, the Big Three decided a number of items. Great Britain and the United States would open a Western Front, as soon as possible. (Churchill wanted the largest invasion to go through the Balkans to save Eastern Europe from Stalin. FDR disagreed). After the war, the Big Three agreed on the following: The Soviet Union would take eastern Poland and Poland would take a portion of eastern Germany, America would leave Europe two years after the war, the Soviet Union would hold free elections in all the countries they occupied, and then would withdraw.
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August 6th, 2015, marks the 70th anniversary of the world’s first use of the atomic bomb. On August 6th, 1945, the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, the U.S.A. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Within 6 days, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrendered to America because of “a new and most cruel bomb.” Since the dropping of these two bombs, debates have occurred over whether America was justified in its actions. Was it moral or immoral to drop atomic bombs on civilian populations? Was the entire country of Japan at war against the U.S.A. or was it just the military? How many American and Japanese deaths would have happened had America invaded Japan?
In the early years of the war, American scientists, along with German scientists who had defected from Nazi Germany, approached the American government and demanded that the U.S.A. start an atomic weapons project. These scientists knew that Germany was developing an atomic bomb, and they were afraid to have Hitler discover the weapon before Germany could be defeated. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed with the scientists, and approved of what would be called The Manhattan Project. The U.S.A. worked together with the United Kingdom and Canada to develop the atomic bomb. During the development of the weapon, Soviet spies secretly gathered intelligence over the progress of The Manhattan Project. On May 8th, 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered to allied forces, and the war in Europe was over. However, the war in Asia continued. Though Allied forces, led by the U.S.A., were winning the war against Japan by taking back islands in the Pacific, Americans were wary of an invasion of mainland Japan. Some predicted the costs of an invasion to number at least 1,000,000 American lives, and many more Japanese casualties. During World War II, Japan operated under a medieval warrior’s mindset. Under this philosophy, honor to one’s family and country superseded all other values, including life. For example, at the Battle of Iwo Jima, of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers, only 216 were taken prisoner. Some who were taken prisoner had been knocked unconscious or were disabled. To the Japanese, a soldier who surrendered was considered less than human. Thus, when Americans surrendered to Japanese forces, they were brutally tortured. And, when Japan conquered other nations, Japanese systematically committed war atrocities. An invasion of Japan would mean an entire Japanese population fighting to the death against an Allied army led by America. Before the U.S.A. dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, it dropped over 5 million leaflets on Japanese cities. This leaflet read: “Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America’s humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.” After America bombed Hiroshima, it dropped these leaflets: America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate. We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city. Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan. You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.” Six days after the second atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrendered. Following World War II, the U.S.A. helped Japanese write a new Constitution, modeled after the U.S. Constitution. Japanese renounced its medieval warrior’s philosophy, and to see what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, please take a look at the attached images: http://www.freelists.org/post/polines/FW-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki-Today Click Here for a Five-Minute Video on this topic. Questions: 1. Who was the U.S.A. at war against in World War II? 2. Which country did America first defeat? 3. Who convinced the U.S.A. to start The Manhattan Project? 4. What are some of the questions Americans debate and discuss regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan? 5. What is your opinion about the U.S.A. dropping the atomic bombs on Japan? |
John De GreeJohn De Gree writes the current events with a look at the history of each topic. Articles are written for the young person, aged 10-18, and Mr. De Gree carefully writes so that all readers can understand the event. The perspective the current events are written in is Judeo-Christian. Receive Articles and Coupons in Your EmailArchives
June 2024
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