Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Allied and Axis Powers in 1941

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Allied and Axis

Powers in 1941.

Allied Powers Axis Powers

Advantages

Disadvantages

Allied Powers Axis Powers

Advantages •U.S. had tremendous production capacity•Soviet Union had vast manpower•Br. And Soviet Union had not been defeated

•Better prepared for war•Firm control over invaded areas•Had been rearmed since the 1930s•Already had airfields, barracks, and military training centers•Economies ready for war

Disadvantages •Faced a long, drawn-out fight on several fronts•Enemy held firm control of conquered areas spread over an enormous area (both Eur. And Pacific)

•Had to defend multiple fronts

Outline the steps that the U.S. took to prepare for war.

Increased production

• More workers• Increased production of cars, ammunition,

rifles, aircraft, planes, naval vessels• Ended the Depression• Farmers wartime production (feed

Americans at home and overseas)

Expand the government

• War Production Board (WPB): Increase military production– Directed conversion of existing factories to wartime

production– Supervised building of new plants– Assigned raw materials to industry

• Office of War Mobilization (OWM): Coordinated all govn’t agencies involved in the war effort– Production and distribution of consumer goods

Direct the economy

• Increased # of Americans who paid income tax• Sold war bonds• Office of Price Administration (OPA): set

maximum prices on consumer goods and rationed scarce items

• Keep wages and prices down by freezing them

Raise the army

• Selective Training and Service Act: Provided for the first peacetime draft in U.S. history– Req. all men 21-35 (later 18-45) to register• Women's involvement:– 300,000 volunteers– Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), Women

Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS), auxiliary branches of navy, coast guard, and marines

– Worked as nurses, drove vehicles, and ferried planes

Identify locations where the Japanese military attacked after

Pearl Harbor.

Clark Air Force Base (12/8/1941)

• U.S. aircraft sitting on runway like “sitting ducks”; air support planes destroyed

• Fleet had to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula• General Douglas MacArthur: Defended the

Philippines; later given command of all U.S. Army units in the Pacific– Famous quote regarding the Philippines: “I shall

return."

Bataan Death March (April 1942)• After retreat, continued to fight; surrendered in

April– Japanese soldiers forced >70K survivors to march

through the jungle to their prison camp; more than 10K died• Treated brutally, prevented from drinking water, beaten, or

shot• Disease spread quickly in camps

Other Locations of Japanese Attack

• Burma• Borneo• Netherlands East Indies• Wake Island• Hong Kong• New Guinea

Battle of the Java Sea (2/27/1942)

• Japanese navy crushed a fleet of Australian, British, Dutch, and U.S. warships that had been trying to prevent an invasion of Java

• Japanese invaded Java the next day and began conquest of New Guinea

Discuss the early turning points of the war in the Pacific.

Battle of the Coral Sea

• Date: May 7, 1942• U.S. Commander: Chester

Nimitz• Events:– British/U.S. naval force

intercepted Japanese attack on Solomon Islands

– Damaged a Japanese carrier and destroyed another and several aircraft

– Effect: Stopped Japanese advance on Australia

Battle of Midway

• Date: June 3-6, 1942• U.S. Commander: Chester Nimitz• Events:– Japanese launched joint attack: Aleutian Islands (near

Alaska; to draw U.S. fleet away from Hawaii) and Midway (main attack)

– U.S. had broken Japanese code and had advance warning

– U.S. ambushed Japanese attack on Midway– Japanese lost ships, planes, and a number of skilled

pilots

Guadalcanal

• Date: August, 1942• U.S. Commander: Maj. Gen. Alexander A.

Vandegrift• Events:– 1st major U.S. offensive– “Ferocious fighting”– Japanese tried to recover in Nov. but were

defeated again

Clark Air Force Base

Burma

Borneo

Wake Island

Hong Kong

Java SeaNew Guinea

Axis Victories

Allied Victories

Coral Sea

Midway

Guadalcanal

Relate the major battles in Europe and North Africa in 1942.

Battle of El Alamein

• Date: July 1942• Axis Commander: “Desert Fox”

Erwin Rommel• British General: Gen. Bernard

Montgomery• Result: – Axis forces suffered shortages of men

and supplies– Rommel’s troops pushed westward

out of Egypt and into Libya

Battle of Stalingrad

• Date: Nov. 1942 – Jan. 1943• Events: – German troops had pushed far into the Soviet Union

and captured many industrial centers and rich grain fields; were closing in on Moscow; laid siege to Leningrad

– Closing in on Stalingrad’s oil fields– Soviet forces refused to surrender and trapped

Germans in the city with few supplies and little food• 200K German casualties

Axis Victories

Allied Victories

Stalingrad

El Alamein

“Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had

a defeat.”Winston Churchill