WORLD WAR II: Introduction & Overview
Copyright © 2017, Henry J. Sage
“There never was a good war or a bad peace”—Franklin

ww2 memorial DC

 

The “Good War"

”World War II was a huge event that took place in the middle of the 20th Century. The fighting itself and preparation for its many battles took place on every continent in the world. It started in Asia, next broke out in Europe and eventually drew the United States into the fray. During that bloody and stormy century, wars and conflicts cost the lives of at least 150 million of human beings and destroyed billions of dollars’ worth of property.  A good portion of that destruction of life and property occurred between 1937 and 1945. 

Following World War I, the Great War that cost over 10 million lives, feelings of "never again" spread across Europe. As will be discussed in the first section of this part of the site, those heartfelt attempts achieved notable successes by creating international agreements to limit armaments that sought ways to avoid further war. As well-meaning as they were, they were in the end, ineffective. There were several reasons why those agreements failed to prevent another world war.The Treaty of Versailles. It took almost 6 months to negotiate, and when the discussions were finished, the results were presented to Germany, a major nation that had no representatives at the peace conference. It was delivered as an ultimatum with no options except to recognize the treaty or face renewed hostilities. The German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm was deposed, and Germany had to create a new democratic government from scratch. The Weimar Constitution had weaknesses that allowed radical parties to emerge, which led to the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party.

Thus World War II was in many ways a continuation of World War I. There can be little doubt that the peace settlement arrived at during the Versailles Conference of 1919 contained within it the seeds of World War II, in that it almost certainly guaranteed that Germany would seek retribution.

A second and related factor was the rise of fascism in Italy under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. The tide in political history was complex to begin with, but Mussolini was able to consolidate power and dominate affairs in the country. When Mussolini decided to align himself with Nazi Germany, the coalition that became known as the Axis was formed, magnifying the threat of further conflict.

The third major factor was the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Communist leaders Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin created a totalitarian state that made the European nations nervous. The goal of international communism was to have it spread throughout the world, and those fears at times detracted from concerns about the rise of the fascist states in Italy and Germany.

Political upheavals also took place in France and Great Britain. The old liberal party in England disappeared in the 1920s, to be replaced by Labour. Antiwar movements attracted many young people who vowed never to fight in another foreign war. Political instability in France resulted in changes in government leadership almost every year between 1920 and 1940. The French military posture was dedicated to the creation of the Maginot line, a defensive barrier that was supposed to prevent Germany from penetrating French soil as they had done between 1914 and 1918. In the end it proved to be ineffective, as new highly motorized and mechanized warfare simply attacked around the flanks of the line.

One additional event that moved the the major powrers closer to conflict was the Spanish Civil War, in which a leftist government was attacked from the outside by a right-leaning nationalistic party under the lead of Francisco Franco. Italy and Germany supported Franco and used the war to test military equipment and ideas. Volunteers sympathetic to the centrist republican government flocked to Spain to join in the fray. Franco’s forces ultimately defeated the republicans, and he ruled Spain until his death in nineteen seventy-five.

Another major factor was the rise of a militarist faction in Japan that controlled the government with the tacit approval of the Emperor. Heavily dependent on imports, Japan sought to control resources by creating what it called the Greater Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, in effect an economic empire designed to fill Japan’s material needs. The militaristic government were Japan was more than prepared to defend that empire by force, and in 1937 Japan attacked China.

While all that was going on, America was still struggling to work its way out of the Great Depression. Despite the growing dangers, many Americans, disillusioned by the outcome of World War I, were convinced that wars in other parts of the world were none of their business. Fearful of losing what economic progress they were making, many Americans adhered to a strong isolationist position. “Let them stew in their own juice,” was a common saying. Thus, when war broke out in Asia in 1937 and in Europe in 1939, America stayed on the sidelines. A widespread movement known as "America First" insisted that the nation remain there, even in the face of the growing ugliness of the Nazi regime. The America firsters resisted every attempt by President Roosevelt to prepare the nation for war and assist the allies, even after Hitler’s Germany had conquered much of western Europe. Unlike the prewar period of World War I, however, there was no question who side American sympathies were on.

The Nature of the War.

WWII was in a real sense two separate wars going on at the same time. The European conflict saw the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, the United States, and a number of smaller countries fighting against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. In the Pacific theater, the United States and Great Britain (and her Indian and Australian allies) fought against the Japanese. The Soviet Union was never involved in the fighting in the Pacific, and finally declared war on Japan only days before the war against Japan ended. Conversely, Japan was not at all involved in the European war. The two wars started separately and ended separately.

An important factor that differentiated World War II from World War I was an increase in the impact of technological and mechanical advances on the way that wars were fought. Much of the human toll World War I came from the fact that tactics were in many ways similar to those used in the American Civil War. But in the age of mobile artillery, machine guns, barbed wire and poison gas, frontal charges proved to be nothing but a guarantee of huge fatalities in the matter of hours or days. Those technological advances that had begun in the First World War were carried even further in World War II, culminating in the use of the atomic bomb against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. On the ocean, the ear of the battleship was gone, replaced by the aircraft carrier they gave an entire new dimension to war at sea.

Another development was the need for amphibious invasions, for which new tactics had to be developed in order to land an army against an armed enemy shore. In Europe the invasions of Sicily, Italy, and the largest amphibious operation of all at Normandy on D-Day and provided the allies a foothold against Italy and Germany. In the Pacific the island hopping campaigns carried out by the Army and Marines with the help of the Pacific fleet tried and tested landing techniques in preparation for what was assumed to be the invasion of the home islands of Japan. When the two atomic bombs were dropped, those plans were rendered unnecessary as the fighting drew to a swift conclusion.

The Course of the War: Overview

In 1937 Japan began what became known as the Second Sino-Japanese War. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in  1941, that war became part of World War II. As mentioned previously, the purpose of the war was meant to enable Japan to get control of raw materials, food and labor to support its own struggling economy, conditions which had been exacerbated by the depression. The war began with an incident involving Chinese and Japanese soldiers at the Marco Polo Bridge near the city of Beijing. The incident quickly grew into a major war, in which the Japanese one a number of early victories. The Japanese army captured Shanghai and Nanking during the first year of fighting.

One of the ugliest incident of the war occurred when the Japanese army occupied Nanking. It has been estimated that in a short period in 1937-38 Japanese army soldiers tortured and murdered some 300,000 Chinese civilians and raped tens of thousands of women. Following initial losses the Chinese were able to stem the Japanese advance, and the war reached a stalemate. Significant resistance to the Japanese came from the Chinese communist forces.

Starting in 1937, tensions began to sharpen internationally as the fascism of Germany and Italy and the militarism of Japan created new world conflicts into which the United States would inevitably be drawn. As Franklin Roosevelt maintained America’s formal neutrality for over two years after war broke out in Europe in 1939, he did not pretend that America had no interest in the conflict, nor was he hesitant to take sides. There would be no question on which state America would fight, if it came to that.

When war began in Europe, one had a sense that it was nothing but the latest round in an endless cycle of violence going back through the centuries—to the Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, the War of the Roses, imperial wars such as the Seven Years War and wars of revolution. Only a fool could have hoped that the first world war would be the last war. Woodrow Wilson had dreamed of making the world safe for democracy, but now it seemed as if what happened at Versailles had merely made the world safe for totalitarian dictators and their appeasers. During the 1920s and 1930s men of good will in all parts of the world worked to avoid the next eruption. But the world was too fragmented, people too frightened, governments too timid, and real means of preserving peace were never achieved.

The European war commenced with Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. President Roosevelt assured the American people in a radio address that the existing Neutrality Act was in effect. Roosevelt then began to walk a fine line between aiding Great Britain, which by the summer of 1940 stood virtually alone against the Nazis, and keeping his political adversaries at bay. His position was complicated by his willingness to run for an unprecedented third term in 1940. 

By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl harbor in December 1941, America was already virtually at war with Germany in the Atlantic. The evils of Nazi Germany were beginning to show, and “fortress America” seemed vulnerable to growing German power. Even as the Japanese fleet was crossing the Pacific to attack Pearl Harbor, American sailors were being killed while fighting German U-boats in the Atlantic. Thus Pearl Harbor was seen by some as a release from tension, an earth-shaking event which clarified the picture and removed most doubts about America’s necessary course. By the time the war was over, about 15 million Americans had served in the armed forces, including around 800,000 women. Some 400,000 were killed, and tens of thousands more became prisoners or were wounded. It has been claimed by some that President Roosevelt was relieved by the attack on Pearl Harbor, which neutralized the isolationist factions. Evidence suggesting that President Roosevelt knew of the Pearl Harbor attack in advance, however, have been disproved.

America at War—General

With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the “day of infamy,” the United States immediately declared war on Japan. On December 8 Franklin Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress making his famous “day of infamy” speech. On December 9 the president made a radio address to the nation that is seldom mentioned in the history books. It accused Hitler of urging Japan to attack the United States. “We know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations with a joint plan,” Roosevelt declared. “Germany and Italy consider themselves at war with the United States without even bothering about a formal declaration.” This was anything but the case, and Roosevelt knew it. Some historians have claimed that Roosevelt was trying to bait Hitler into declaring war, or, failing that, persuade the American people to support an American declaration of war on the two European fascist powers.

The question then became, what about Germany? Germany, Italy, and Japan had concluded an agreement, the Tripartite Pact, in 1940, which was called the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. The pact did not require Germany to enter a war started by Japan, such as the one begun by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, it was clear that Germany and Japan saw themselves having a common enemy, and thus Hitler declared war on the United States. As a result, the U.S. found itself confronted with a two-front war—facing two powerful enemies, both of whom had been honing their war-making skills for several years. Because the Japanese also attacked British possessions in Asia, America and Great Britain shared two common enemies.

A 2001 book, The New Dealers’ War by Thomas Fleming, goes into reasons for the German war declaration in detail. Fleming claims that President Roosevelt manipulated Germany into declaring war on the United States, which Germany did on December 11, 1941, three days after the United States declared war on Japan. Fleming lays out the scenario on pages 30–36 of his book. The situation was that Hitler had his hands full with Russia and did not want to force the Unites States into the war. But Japan urged Germany to join in, and Winston Churchill also wanted the United States in to take pressure off Great Britain, who by then stood all alone on the western front after France surrendered in 1940. Fleming writes:

On December 9, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt made a radio address to the nation that is seldom mentioned in the history books. It accused Hitler of urging Japan to attack the United States. “We know that Germany and Japan are conducting their military and naval operations with a joint plan,” Roosevelt declared. “Germany and Italy consider themselves at war with the United States without even bothering about a formal declaration.” This was anything but the case, and Roosevelt knew it. He was trying to bait Hitler into declaring war, or, failing that, persuade the American people to support an American declaration of war on the two European fascist powers. (p. 34)

In any case, Germany did declare war. Now the United States was in all the way. Perhaps WWII really was actually, as President Woodrow Wilson had hoped in 1917, the “war to end all wars.” Although for a time after 1945 many in the world contemplated the possibility of World War III, that has not yet occurred.

Allied strategy

Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met in August 1941 and agreed upon what became known as the “Atlantic Charter.” It was a statement of principles much like Wilson's Fourteen Points. Although it was merely a policy statement, the two leaders understood that they had common interests in continuing what Woodrow Wilson had called a war to save democracy. The two leader discussed possible war strategies in additional to the general aims states in the Charter. Roosevelt’s meeting with Churchill was widely criticized in the press. Editorials asked what business President Roosevelt had discussing war aims when the nation was not even at war. It was clear that if the United States were drawn into the conflict, we would fight alongside Great Britain, but that didn’t satisfy his opponents.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the “day of infamy,” the United States immediately declared war on Japan. The question then became, what about Germany? Germany, Italy, and Japan had concluded an agreement, the Tripartite Pact, in 1940, which was called the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. The pact did not require Germany to enter a war started by Japan, such as the one begun by the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, it was clear that Germany and Japan saw themselves having a common enemy, and thus Hitler declared war on the United States. In any case, Germany did declare war. Now the United States was in all the way. Perhaps WWII really was actually, as President Woodrow Wilson had hoped in 1917, the “war to end all wars.” Although for a time after 1945 many in the world contemplated the possibility of World War III, that has not yet occurred. As a result, the U.S. found itself confronted with a two-front war—facing two powerful enemies, both of whom had been honing their war-making skills for several years. Because the Japanese also attacked British possessions in Asia, America and Great Britain shared two common enemies.

With Japan in control of much of the Far East and Germany in control of most of Europe, the United States and Great Britain were indeed the only two great democracies left fighting against the Axis. Faced with a possible two-front war, the United States and Great Britain quickly concluded that Germany was the greater threat to the survival of humanity, and thus the two nations adopted a “Germany first” policy. Cooperation between the United States and her British allies was intensive and very effective throughout World War II. In general that strategy was followed, although the Japanese forced the United States to change its priorities when they occupied the island of Guadalcanal in 1942, a location from which they could harass all U.S. shipping being used to build up American forces in Australia, the base of operations for the war against Japan.

The Pacific War

In general that strategy was followed, although the United States was forced to change its priorities when the Japanese occupied the island of Guadalcanal in 1942. From there they could harass all U.S. shipping being used to build up American forces in Australia, the base of operations for the war against Japan. Thus in August 1942 U.S. Marines went ashore at Guadalcanal and fought a long, bloody six-month campaign to gain control of the island. General MacArthur was in command of army troops in Australia, and Admiral Chester Nimitz commanded navy, marine, and army units in the Central Pacific. Soon MacArthur and Nimitz began a two-pronged assault upon Japan that consisted of a series of amphibious operations along the coastline of Indonesia and through the island chains of the Pacific. Marines and soldiers paid a high price in their battles against the Japanese, who had been digging defensive positions in those islands for almost twenty years.

The turning point in the Pacific war occurred early at the two naval battles of Coral Sea and Midway. As mentioned earlier, U.S. aircraft carriers had been lucky enough to escape the attack at Pearl Harbor. When the Pacific Fleet discovered the Japanese moving toward Wake Island, they set out to meet them, and those two epic battles took place. These were historic encounters in that the two fleets were never within sight of each other but fought only with the aircraft from their carriers. By the end of the Battle of Midway, the Japanese had lost four aircraft carriers, and her dominance of Pacific waters was severely threatened.

From 1943 through most of 1945, the Americans and Japanese slugged it out on island after island, (the U.S. military strategy in the South Pacific was dubbed “island hopping”), and along the coast of Indonesia until General MacArthur was eventually able to recapture the Philippine Islands. In early 1945 marines and soldiers took Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the last stepping-off spot before a planned invasion of Japan was to take place.

The European War

Meanwhile the American army, trained but untested in combat, was not prepared to launch an attack directly on the European mainland in 1942. With Lieutenant General Dwight Eisenhower in command, the first American offensive action in the European Theater was Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. Initially facing the armored divisions of Field Marshal Rommel, the Americans were beaten up pretty badly. But under the leadership of generals such as George Patton and Omar Bradley, American soldiers soon found their fighting spirit. With the help of the British under Field Marshal Montgomery, they began to roll back the Germans in North Africa.

The next logical step was for Americans to cross the Mediterranean along with the British and capture the Island of Sicily, which was done with all dispatch. After Sicily, an Allied assault took place on the boot of Italy and the beaches of Anzio and Salerno. The Italian campaign proved to be extremely difficult for two reasons. First, the mountainous terrain of Italy made advancing very difficult; and, second, the German troops in Italy were commanded by Field Marshal Kesselring, one of Germany’s most competent commanders.

The Americans finally reached Rome in 1944, about the same time as D-Day occurred. At the same time the Italians got fed up with Mussolini, overthrew his government, and hanged him. At that point Italy was officially out of the war. But the German army was still in Italy, and the fighting continued between the Americans and Germans in northern Italy until the war ended in 1945.

Italy remained a partner of Germany through 1944. Hitler realized early in the war that Italy was as much of a drain on his resources as an asset to his plans. For example, he recognized the need to send Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps into North Africa to support Italian operations there. He also sent one of his best generals to defend Italy, Field Marshal Kesselring. As noted above, Hitler turned on Russia in the summer of 1941, and that huge campaign occupied the bulk of German forces. So the need to defend Italy with German troops further weakened Hitler’s western front.

By early 1944 the Americans and British, with help from Canadians and the French soldiers who had survived the German invasion in 1940, planned the final assault on the fortress of Europe. While the Russians occupied much of Germany’s military might on the Eastern front, American and British troops crossed the English Channel on D-Day, June 6, 1944, with the largest amphibious invasion in history. The fighting on the main beach, Omaha Beach, was bloody, and for the first several hours victory was by no means assured. A certain amount of German hesitation, and the disruptions caused by massive parachute drops of three American and British airborne divisions behind the beaches eventually allowed the allies to gain a foothold; the rollback of Germany on the western front was begun.

Paris was liberated in August 1944, and by the end of that year the Americans were ap-proaching the Rhine. Following the bloody Battle of the Bulge, which temporarily set the allied forces reeling, Americans crossed the Rhine in March 1945, along with their British allies, and as the German armies crumbled under massive air assaults, and as their cities were reduced to rubble, German resistance gradually fell.

With the end in sight, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin, and the Germans finally capitulated to the Russians and Americans. The war in Europe was over. V-E Day, for Victory in Europe, was May 8, 1945. It was president Harry Truman’s 61st birthday.

The War in the Pacific

America's war in the Pacific started badly, with the destruction of major elements of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Luckily, however, the aircraft carriers were at sea that day, and as aircraft carriers became the dominant naval weapon of World War II, much of the course of the Pacific war could be traced to that bit of extraordinary luck.

Two major events in 1942 shaped the war against Japan. In the naval battles of Coral Sea and Midway, the number of Japanese carriers were sunk, which helped give United States forces air superiority for subsequent events. The 2nd event was the Japanese move into Guadalcanal Island, from there they could threaten the sea lanes linking the United States and Australia, where forces were being built up to attack the Japanese in the Pacific. Thus, although the decision to attack Germany 1st had been made, the 1st offensive ground action in the war took place a Guadalcanal in August 1942.

From there what preceded was known as the island hopping campaign. Marines and Army forces attacked a series of islands leading toward Japan, from Tarawa, the Marshall Islands, Iwo Jima, and other intermediate stops, they eventually arrived in a position to attack Okinawa, the last island between the advancing allies in Japan. Meanwhile Army forces operating out of Australia also moved along the Indonesian island chain, eventually retaking the Philippines.

When those efforts converged on the invasion of Okinawa, the Japanese fleet had been reduced to a mere shell of his former self. The Japanese were running out of ships, fuel and aircraft. Although they still had a large army on the Chinese mainland, transporting them back to the homelands to defend against the coming Allied invasion of Japan would have been difficult at best.

The fighting across the Pacific against entrenched Japanese islands had been fierce, with high numbers of casualties and places like Tarawa and Pelelieu. The fanaticism of Japanese defenders was well known, and it was assumed that that ferocity would be even more intense when the Japanese were called upon to defend their home islands. Fortunately, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rendered the invasion unnecessary, as Emperor Hirohito finally directed his forces to surrender. Thus 3 months after Germany surrendered, the Japanese also capitulated. The war was over

The Manhattan Project: Dawn of the Atomic Age

Countless scientific, engineering, and medical advances were made during the course of World War II. Among them were such things as radar, jet aircraft, penicillin, communications equipment, coding and decoding machines, rockets and hundreds of other devices. Perhaps the most significant for the future of the human race was the harnessing of atomic power. Although its first practical application consisted of the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, other uses of nuclear power for energy and in the future, perhaps for inter-planetary travel, became possible.

When President Franklin Roosevelt received Einstein's famous 1939 letter about the possible uses of atomic power for weaponry, he launched what became known as the Manhattan project. Physicists and engineers gathered in various sites around the country as well as in England as they learn to produce fissionable material and crafted into an explosive device of enormous power. The work was carried out with high standards of secrecy, though as it turned out, a Soviet spy was present in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where the first bombs were being developed.

The project was carried through with haste, as Americans feared that Germany might be developing an atomic bomb, which, if delivered by their new V--rockets, could have delivered a device that might have destroyed London or other cities in England. Few doubted that if such a weapon were available, Hitler would not hesitate to use it. The utmost secrecy with which the work was carried out led to the fact that when Vice President Harry Truman assumed office upon Roosevelt's death in April, 1945, he had no knowledge of the Manhattan Project. Shortly after taking office, Truman was briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and General Leslie Groves, who was in charge of the Alamogordo project.

President Truman learned that the A-bomb test had been successful while he was in pots them meeting with Churchill and Stalin to discuss the future of the war against Japan. While on his trip back to the United States aboard a Navy cruiser, he issued the order to the air forces in the Pacific to drop the 2 bombs. Arguments have going on over the years regarding President Truman's decision to use the bomb on Japan. In hindsight, criticism of his decision has some merit, but considering the fact that little was known about the long-term effects of atomic radiation--witness the number of tests that were carried out on remote islands in the Pacific after the war--and the fact that Truman had only sketchy knowledge of the actual details or full destructive power of the bomb, his decision in the face of predictions about the cost of invading Japan, is difficult to criticize. In any case, in his memoirs, Harry Truman expressed no regret over using the weapon.

An excellent film about the last days of the war, viewed from both the American and Japanese side, is Hiroshima, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and Koreyoshi Kurahara, a joint production of Canada and Japan.)

For further details on the Manhattan Project, see the section on atomic warfare.

Conclusions:

World War II transformed the United States from a strong industrial nation into the world’s first superpower. In 1945 America was the only major nation undamaged by the ravages of aerial bombardment and ground combat. For every American who died in the war, 50 Russians died. American industry, undamaged, quickly retooled from wartime production to become the world's greatest producer of manufactured goods and agricultural produce. America stood “astride the world like a colossus.” The Cold War, which had already begun to take shape, soon changed all that, but for a time, America stood alone. The “American century” was at its high point.

The casualties of World War II are literally incalculable. The number of deaths is estimated at 50 to 60 million from all causes, and the number of homeless, displaced persons also numbered in the millions. The economic costs can only be guessed at. It took years for the world to recover, and in some ways, the recovery has never ended.

America has become a formidable adversary on the battlefield, and contributed heavily to the toll of those killed. When the United States entered World War I, the nation moved to the center of the world stage and has remained there ever since. True, American isolationism in the 1930s took the U.S. out of the action, so to speak, as troubling events unfolded both in Europe and in Asia. Indeed, America has at times been accused of having its head in the sand when it comes to the rest of the world. We have also at times been accused of being incorrigible meddlers in the affairs of others, always trying to act as “the world's policeman.” In 1939 when war broke out in Europe, many Americans were convinced that it was none of their affair.


America was a formidable adversary on the battlefield, and contributed heavily to the toll of those killed. When United States entered World War I the nation moved to the center of the world stage and stayed there, despite a period of isolationism during the depression years. For decades Americans were accused of having their heads in the sand regarding the affairs of the rest of the world. But in the latter decades of the twentieth century, America was also accused of being incorrigible meddlers in the affairs of nations—acting as “the world's policeman.”

Conclusion: By 1945 America stood alone as the world’s first superpower. Stimulated by the needs of the Second World War, huge advances were made not only in weaponry, but also in electronics, medicine, communications, and in the development of atomic energy, which would soon become available for civilian as well as military purposes. American factories turned out huge amounts of war materiel. When the conflict ended, that productive might was quickly reoriented toward civilian needs. In 1945 the nation was all but unrecognizable when compared against conditions in the 1920s or 1930s.

Although America’s losses in World War II—over 400,000 dead—were great, measured against the overall casualties of the conflict, which totaled perhaps 50 million, the losses were not as devastating as those of the Soviet Union, which lost perhaps 20 million dead. With her homeland also virtually untouched, the United States was in a position to lead the world along whatever path seemed most productive. America would continue to dominate the international arena for the remainder of the 20th century. By 1945, the “Time of the Americans” was well at hand.
The United States was much more heavily involved in World War II than World War I, although the war had been raging for years before the United States became directly involved. Before the United States was formally involved, America was directly and indirectly assisting the British in the Atlantic. In the end some 13–14 million Americans served in uniform during the war period, and American factories and plants produced almost 30 percent of all the materiel used by the Allies.

World War II is slowly fading from memory. Anniversaries of key dates--the attack on Pearl Harbor, victory over Germany, final victory over Japan--are occasions used to awaken those memories, but they are fleeting. The lessons that might have been drawn from that conflict no longer seem relevant, except for the specter of the possibility of atomic, now better called nuclear war. Appeasement of Germany in the 1930s led to further aggression. Whether that remains relevant in dealing with aggressive nations today is an open question. The epithet "No more Vietnams" was abandoned when violence broke out in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. International terrorism has led to further concerns about how to respond.

What is different today, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, is that the wars of the past were fought by nations over aims that were at least identifiable and comprehensible, no matter how disturbing. Now, killing for the sake of killing, with no other ostensible purpose, seems to be the norm. The struggle to deal with that new breed of warfare continues.

World War II was the event that transformed the United States from a strong industrial nation into the world’s first superpower. In the late 1930s as Americans still struggled to work their way out of the Depression, Europe and Asia began to feel the forces of fascist, militaristic and aggressive powers—the Axis of Germany, Italy and Japan. Despite the growing dangers, many Americans, disillusioned by the outcome of World War I, convinced that wars in other parts of the world were none of their business, and fearful of losing what economic progress they were making, adhered to a strong isolationist position. Groups like “America First” resisted every attempt by President Roosevelt to prepare the nation for war and assist our allies, even after Hitler’s Germany had conquered much of western Europe.

Following are some important factors about World War II in general:

  • World War II was in many ways a continuation of World War I. There can be no doubt that the peace settlement arrived at during the Versailles Conference of 1919 contained within it the seeds of World War II, in that it almost certainly guaranteed that Germany would seek retribution.
  • WWII was in a real sense two separate wars going on at the same time. The European conflict saw the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, the United States, and some of the smaller countries fighting against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Pacific war saw the United States and Great Britain (and her Indian and Australian allies) fighting against the Japanese and Chinese. The Soviet Union was never involved in the Pacific war, and Japan was not at all involved in European war. The two wars started separately and ended separately.
  • The technological advances that had begun in the First World War were carried even further in World War II, culminating in the use of the atomic bomb against Hi-roshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
  • The United States was much more heavily involved in World War II than World War I, although the war had been raging for years before the United States became directly involved. Before the United States was formally involved, America was di-rectly and indirectly assisting the British in the Atlantic. In the end some 13–14 million Americans served in uniform during the war period, and American factories and plants produced almost 30 percent of all the materiel used by the Allies.

Sage American History | World War 2 Home | Background to World War 2 | Updated May 3, 2017