After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Great Britain and France declared war to Germany. In 1940, the German navy destroyed many British destroyers and the Great Britain was looking for some help. And also, Winston Churchill was recently elected to be the new British Prime Minister. After the lost of several war machines, he asked the United States of America for help. The United States of America were a neutral country but Franklin Roosevelt also wanted to help countries with a democracy going on. So he responded to Churchill’s demand by exchanging 50 destroyers for 99-year leases on British bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. After this, a debate about the neutrality of the United States erupted but the President declared that the country would never be involved in a foreign war. However, Roosevelt kept supporting the ideas of Great Britain by lending them the help they needed. In January 1941, Roosevelt proposed to Congress a new military aid bill. His plan was to lend-lease arms and other supplies needed by any country whose security was crucial for the security of the United States. After two months of debate, the “Lend-lease act” passed in March 1941.
Atlantic Charter: August 19th, 1941
After the Lend-lease act in March 1941, the neutrality of the United States had never been so called into questions. The relations between the United States and Great Britain were friendly and close to an alliance. During the summer, Churchill and Roosevelt met on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland during what was called the Atlantic Conference. The conference took place from August 9-12, 1941 and representatives from both countries were represented. The conference took place while Germany and Italy were expanding more and more. The alliance between those two countries (and Japan ) was called the Axis. The Atlantic conference resulted in the Atlantic charter (14th August) : the United States and Great Britain declared that they were both condemning the actions of the Axis and they established 8 points to respect. Those eight points were : renunciation of annexations for both countries, territorial adjustments must be in accord with the countries concerned, all people had a right to self-determination, a concerted effort would be made to lower trade barriers, there is an economic help between the two countries, they would fight for peace and eradicate fear, the access to the sea is primordial, the aggressor nation would be disarmed. The Atlantic Charter was the precursor of the United Nations.
Pearl Harbor: Dec. 7, 1941
On December 7th, 1941 the U.S. Naval base in Pearl Harbor located in Hawaii encountered a surprise attack from the Japanese. They bombed Pearl Harbor for two hours from air crafts in the sky above and ended up killing around 2,400 Americans, sinking and damaging 21 ships, and ruining 188 U.S. air crafts. This event angered Americans to a whole new level, causing them to remove themselves from a isolationism stand point and declare war on Japan. The Japanese intentions for the attack was because the United States had established an embargo on Japan, restricting them from expanding through Asia. This made the Japanese frustrated and was the main cause for the surprise attack. The attack occurred on a Sunday around 6-7 a.m. so most people were either sleeping or getting ready for church and was not expecting an attack at all. Although the Americans did immediately start firing back, the Japanese had the upper hand because they were attacking from the sky which made it more difficult for the U.S. to shoot them down. To this day the bombing of Pearl Harbor is considered one of the most significant military events in America because of it's destruction and the events that followed after.
Internment Camps: 1942-1945
On December 7th, 1941, while World War II was occurring, America’s Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese which was a very significant event and caused more resentment than there was initially between the U.S. and the Japanese. Due to rivalry and prejudice views, almost all Japanese Americans were sent to Interment Camps. These Interment Camps were sectioned off areas that were military run and prisoners of war (which in this case were the Japanese) occupied these camps. There were three types of camps; Civilian Assembly Centers were only temporary living camps, Relocation Centers were the actual Internment camps where the Japanese would reside permanently, and Detention camps were occupied by Japanese that were considered special interest to the Government. Once they were informed that they had to be relocated to these camps, the Japanese had to leave their house and all of their belongings behind. Today, people may question whether or not it was fair to send almost all Japanese Americans to such unfair conditions because what if they were an American citizen? Or only 1/16th Japanese? What if they were Korean or Taiwanese? But to all of America in 1942, every Japanese looking person was viewed as the enemy and was therefore forced to live in these camps whether it was deemed fair or not. This quote from a columnist named Henry McLemore says, “I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior. I don't mean a nice part of the interior either. Herd 'em up, pack 'em off and give 'em the inside room in the badlands... Personally, I hate the Japanese. And that goes for all of them.” This quote is a perfect example of an average person’s view on the Japanese back then. The camps were finally closed though in 1945 because America finally realized that what they were doing was unfair. To show their remorse, the government ended up rewarding each person that were sent to these camps $2,500 in 1948 and $20,000 in 1980 to make up for each person’s lost belongings and houses.
D-Day: June 6th, 1944
On June 6th, 1944 the 50-mile long beaches of Normandy, France had some surprise visitors; the Allied powers. Also known as Operation OVERLORD, D-day was a very big turning point in World War II. The German's were not prepared for this battle so America, Britain, and Canada had the upper hand. 160,000 troops landed on the coast armed and ready to fight with over 5,000 ships and 13,000 air crafts. Though the German's did put up a fight, they were no match for how carefully and thoughtfully this attack had been planned out and executed with help from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the supreme commander of the Allied powers. The day before the attack, Eisenhower gave these encouraging words to his troops, "You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you... I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle." This quote helps give us an idea of how crucial this battle really was. The allied powers were able to defeat the German's and push there way through France, eventually regaining control of it entirely. After the success of D-day, Hitler's rule started to deteriorate and eventually lead to his downfall. If it wasn't for the implementation of Operation OVERLORD due to of Allied powers, the ending result of the war could have been completely different than what it turned out to be and that's why D-day has become a very significant day for not only America, but for our world as a whole.
Yalta Conference: Feb. 4th-11th, 1945
When World War II was finally coming to an end, there was a conference, famously known as the Yalta Conference, held on Feb. 4th, 1945 that lasted seven days long. This conference determined the final outcomes of the war itself; mostly punishing Germany for all of the destruction they had caused. Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin were the three Allied power leaders that ran the conference and ultimately decided Germany's fate. They came to the decision that Germany would be divided into 4 different sections that would be controlled and/or supervised by the Allied powers. Many other things were decided in this conference such as how the United Nations was going to be formally ratified, the USSR was able to gain land from Poland while Poland expanded west and north, and the declaration of liberated Europe. This conference was extremely significant to America because we had a big part in deciding the future of generations to come all around the world. After the conference, the three leaders left in a very festive mood because Germany had finally been oppressed and people no longer had to live in fear of the Nazi Party due to the rule of Hitler finally coming to an end!
Island Hopping: 1943-1945
Due to the resentment the American's had for the Japanese, they soon started having a war of their own in the "Pacific Theater". Since a great number of these battles took place in the Pacific near Japan and many other islands, it was hard for the U.S. to get supplies over to our troops and have a place for them to rest. In order to solve this issue, America came up with the strategy known as Island Hopping to help benefit our soldiers so they could fight to the best of their ability. Island Hopping is where the allied forces secured multiple islands in the Pacific as military bases and would essentially "hop" from island to island in order to get closer to Japan and bypass some of their strong points. The Allies moved from the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas islands and ended up in the Philippines. Island hopping was just like using stepping stones or playing the game leap frog to get to a desired location, which in this case was Japan. This military strategy was very significant and important to the U.S. because it helped us keep up the fight against the Japanese and gave us a chance at winning, which eventually we did. People do speculate though that island hopping was very dangerous because it gave the Japanese time to carefully plan out the assault they knew was about to come. But in the end we still were able to execute this tactic very successfully regardless of us playing a more offensive role in these battles, while the Japanese had more of a defensive stance.
Manhattan Project: 1945
During World War II, there were plenty of rumors going around about how Hitler was supposedly going to create an atomic bomb so of course the U.S. had to beat him to it which launched the beginning of the Manhattan Project. This project was kept in extreme secrecy because the U.S. did not want the other countries to figure out that our country had a huge upper hand over everyone. At one point there was 40 different laboratories working on this project with some of the top scientists ever such as Albert Einstein. On July 16, 1945, the U.S. was able to test out their prototype in a New Mexican desert which ended up becoming a success. They soon created two more atomic bombs that were to be used during World War II if worse comes to worse. This creation of an atomic bomb was with out a doubt one of the most significant advancements in warfare and technology and had never been done before, which gave the U.S. a huge advantage. Eventually, our country ended up dropping both of our bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and caused devastating damage to Japan; such as radioactive poisoning and wiping out both cities entirely with few survivors. The atomic bomb, however, did create a gateway for scientists to able to discover how to compose the power of nuclear energy and many doctors nowadays use technology found in the atomic bomb for CAT scans and chemotherapy.
Battle of the Bulge: December 16th, 1944- January 25th, 1945
The Battle of the Bulge was Germany’s last attempt at fighting back on the Western Front against the United States, the UK, France and Belgium. It began with a poorly planned attack by the Germans on December 16th, 1944; they pooled all of their armies together from battle fronts all over to create a surprise attack. They had the foresight to choose a day with poor weather to stop the American Air Force and choose a poorly protected area to attack, but they did not expect the resistance that met them their. They used their small advantage of surprise for the first day, however they were not successful enough with the first set of attacks and once the Americans regrouped and sent the attacks back the Germans were pushed back while they were still over 50 miles away from their goal. They set up a plan to take over American resources, specifically oil, but because they were stopped they did not have enough supplies and it soon became apparent they had little to no chance of success. As the days went on the Germans realized their inevitable defeat and on January 25th the battle was over, their last attempt had failed. This was Germany’s final offensive attack at the Western Front and they had put everything they had left into it, once the battle was over it was clear that the war as a whole was coming to an end and Germany had no real chance of fighting back.