The American Yawp — Chapter Twenty-Two: World War II
Abridged for Intermediate-High Learners

World War II was the deadliest war in human history: perhaps 80 million people died. The United States stayed neutral at first, but joined the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. When the war ended, the United States stood as the world's greatest superpower, with its strongest economy. The war also unleashed powerful new forces — nuclear weapons and demands for equality — that shaped the future.

After World War I, America turned toward isolationism and refused to join the League of Nations. Meanwhile, dictators rose: Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933; Italy's Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935; and Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and then all of China in 1937. Congress passed neutrality acts banning weapons sales to warring nations. But Britain and France tried to appease Hitler by giving him land, and he kept demanding more.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and Britain and France declared war. Using fast attacks called blitzkrieg, Germany conquered Poland in weeks and France by June 1940. President Roosevelt slowly loosened American neutrality, and the 1941 Lend-Lease Act made America the "arsenal of democracy." When Japan refused to leave China, the US placed an oil embargo on Japan, which Japan saw as an act of war.

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,400 Americans. Roosevelt called it "a date which will live in infamy," and Congress declared war within hours. America moved to mobilize: almost 18 million men served, though more than 10 million were drafted. In the Pacific, the US won key naval battles at Midway, then began "island-hopping" toward Japan. In Europe, the Allies landed in North Africa in 1942 and Italy in 1943; on June 6, 1944 — D-Day — they landed in Normandy, France under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, freeing Paris two months later.

Germany was crushed between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which inflicted about 80 percent of German casualties. Hitler killed himself in April 1945, and Germany accepted unconditional surrender in May. American firebombs killed 100,000 civilians in Tokyo in a single night. To avoid a costly invasion, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Japan surrendered on August 15, and the war formally ended on September 2.

The war transformed the American economy, as factories converted to military production and government agencies managed it. Rationing limited what civilians could buy: gasoline, meat, sugar, and coffee required ration cards. Americans bought war bonds to fund the fight. Unemployment nearly disappeared, and millions of women entered the workforce. Starting in 1942, the Bracero Program brought Mexican workers to American farms and railroads.

About 350,000 women served in the military, and millions more worked in munitions factories — the famous "Rosie the Riveter" symbolized them. But after the war, most women left the workforce or lost their jobs to returning men. Racial injustice also marked the war: segregation divided the military into Black and white units, though the Black Tuskegee Airmen served with honor. Under Executive Order 9066, over 110,000 Japanese Americans — 70,000 of them US citizens — were forced into internment camps because of prejudice and wartime fear.

America helped build a postwar world. Fifty nations signed the United Nations charter on June 26, 1945. The 1944 GI Bill gave returning veterans unemployment benefits, college tuition, and low-cost home loans — though Black veterans faced discrimination. At Bretton Woods, Allied nations created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, tying the world economy to the dollar. The United States entered the war in a depression and left it in an economic boom — facing a rivalry with the Soviet Union that would define the next half century.