World War II: America's Motivation and Impact

How did the United States’ motivations for entering World War II impact our actions?

Following World War I, the United States hoped to avoid further entanglement with European politics that had drawn us into war. A strong isolationist sentiment developed that questioned the wisdom of our entry into The Great War as it was then known. However, the rise of military government in Germany, Italy and Japan and their invasions of neighboring countries became a major concern for United States leaders including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Germany Instigates World War I

In Europe, Adolf Hitler led the rise of the Nazi Party, which claimed that Germany was treated unfairly in the peace treaty that ended WWI. He also sought to unite all German-speaking peoples, a policy that put him at odds with several neighbors like Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Great Britain and France tried to negotiate an end to German expansion, but the Soviet Union on Germany’s eastern front signed a non-aggression treaty with Hitler that opened the door to Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. France and England came to the aid of the Poles and declared war on Germany. Hitler’s armies quickly overran Poland and then France, leaving Britain alone against German armies and air force. President Roosevelt wanted to come to the aid of our British allies, but public sentiment was not yet ready to send American soldiers to fight in another European war.

Meanwhile, Germany and Italy became partners with Japan that had designs on domination of Eastern Asia. Japan lacked natural resources like oil and rubber and created plans to attack neighboring countries that could supply them. They invaded Korea and Manchuria and then China. They also looked southward to the European colonies of Dutch East Asia and British Malaysia. They knew that the United States and Great Britain would fight to stop them. To weaken U.S. naval forces in the Pacific, Japan bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. America declared war on Japan, and on December 11, Germany and Italy lived up to their agreement with Japan and declared war on the United States. Iowan Henry A. Wallace had been elected vice president in 1940 and served there throughout most of the war.

American Offensive in European and Pacific Fronts

Instead of putting all its efforts to fight Japan, the United States made Europe its first priority. Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, and they agreed that Hitler was a greater danger than Japan. German planes were bombing London regularly, and many expected a Nazi invasion. The United States began mobilizing armies, converting its factories to produce war supplies, and encouraging farmers to boost production. British and American generals developed a plan to invade Europe through Italy before attempting an attack across the English Channel against heavily fortified defenses. Meanwhile, German armies had invaded the Soviet Union and were imposing frightening losses on military and civilian populations alike. The Soviets, with the aid of a brutal Russian winter, halted the Nazi advance and forced a German retreat. Finally, in June 1944, a combined American-British invasion force landed on the French coast of Normandy, established a beach head, and from there began an offensive that led to a German surrender in May 1945.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy took the offensive in the Pacific against Japan. The route to Japan led through several Pacific Islands that the Japanese defended with determination. Two Allied naval victories broke the strength of the Japanese fleet and allowed the Allied forces to get close enough to establish air bases from which bombers could strike Japanese cities. The estimates of the loss of life that would be required to force the main Japanese islands to surrender reached a million. During the war, in a very secret project, U.S. scientists had developed a bomb that was hundreds of times more powerful than anything before. In August, 1945, President Harry Truman ordered atomic bombs to be dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing the world into the nuclear age. Japan surrendered within a matter of days, and WWII was over.

Some estimates of the loss of life due to fighting, disease and other war-related factors run as high as 60 million, or about 3 percent of the world's population at the time. The Soviet Union suffered the greatest cost, with some 20 million civilian and military casualties. The United States, protected by two oceans from the battlefields, sustained around 420,000 war-related deaths. Iowa soldiers killed or wounded are recorded as around 2,800.

Supporting Questions

Why did the US get involved in World War II?

• "Their Cry is Answered," July 25, 1940 (Image)
• Atlantic Charter, August 14, 1941 (Document)
• USS West Virginia on Fire during Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 (Image)
• President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" Speech, December 8, 1941 (Document)
• "United States Is At War But Citizens Are Calm" Newspaper Article, December 10, 1941 (Document)
• "Many Local People in Pacific War Zone" Newspaper Article, December 11, 1941 (Document)
• "Warning Our Homes Are In Danger Now," 1942 (Image)
• "The Unconquered People" Sketch, July 1942 (Image)
• "Remember Pearl Harbor - Work - Fight - Sacrifice!!" 1943 (Political Cartoon)
• "Roosevelt and Hitler" Buster Ezell's World War II Song, March 1944 (Document)

Why did America fight differently in the two theaters?

• Destruction of a Burmese Village after a Japanese Bombing, ca. 1942 (Image)
• Japanese Plane Carrier Circling to Avoid Attack at Midway, ca. 1942 (Image)
• Memo from Joseph Stalin about Opening of Second Front during World War II, August 13, 1942 (Document)
• Allied Civilian Relief in Tunisia, 1943 (Image)
• Australian Troops Fighting the Japanese in Buna (New Guinea), 1944 (Image)
• D-Day Statement to Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, June 1944 (Document)
• American Troops Move Through a Bombed German Street, April 16, 1945 (Image)
• Interview with Merrill's Marauders Commando Grant Jiro Hirabayashi, June 29, 2005 (Video)
• Interview with Conscientious Objector Rothacker Smith, March 24, 2006 (Audio)

How was victory achieved on each front?

• Nagasaki, Japan, After the Atomic Bomb, 1945 (Image)
• General Leslie Groves' Statement to the Officers about the Atomic Bomb, 1945 (Document)
• German Instrument of Surrender, May 7, 1945 (Document)
• Petition from Leo Szilard and Other Scientists to President Harry S. Truman, July 17, 1945 (Document)
• Letter from Dr. Luis Alvarez to his Son about the Atomic Bomb, August 6, 1945 (Document)
• "Atomic Bomb Opens New Era in Scientific History" Newspaper Article, August 7, 1945 (Document)
• Japanese Instrument of Surrender, September 2, 1945 (Document)
• Letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to William D. Pawley, April 9, 1955 (Document)
• Interview of Navy Petty Officer Augustus Prince, October 20, 2004 (Video)
• Interview with Robert Holmberg, Who Worked on the Manhattan Project, September 22, 2005 (Video)

Additional Resources

• World War II Casualities List
  This database by the National Archives allows the viewer to search for World War II casualities of Iowans by county. 
• "Atomic Bomb Opens New Era in Scientific History"
  This Wordpress website by Iowa State University Special Collections and University Archives includes newspaper clippings, photographs and more that show the connection between ISU and the invention of the atomic bomb. 
• "The War" by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
  This is the main webpage for the PBS documentary "The War," which provided a vast overview of America on the homefront and battlefront during World War II.
• Voices of the Manhattan Project
  This website produced by the Atomic Heritage Foundation contains a number of oral histories from individuals who had some part in the Manhattan Project to create the first atomic bomb. 
• IPTV's "World War II"
  This Iowa Pathways website "World War II" includes a number of primary and  secondary resources and links featuring Iowans who experienced World War II.

Iowa Core Social Studies Standards (9th-12th Grade)

Listed below are the Iowa Core Social Studies content anchor standards that are best reflected in this source set. The content standards applied to this set are elementary-age level and encompass the key disciplines that make up social studies for students 9th through 12th grade.

• SS-Geo.9-12.17. Analyze how environmental and cultural characteristics of various places and regions influence political and economic decisions.
• SS-Geo.9-12.20. Assess the impact of economic activities and political decisions on urban, suburban, and rural regions.
• SS-US.9-12.20. Analyze the growth of and challenges to U.S. involvement in the world in the post-World War II era.
• SS-US.9-12.22. Evaluate the impact of inventions and technological innovations on the American society and culture.
• SS-US.9-12.24. Critique primary and secondary sources of information with attention to the source of the document, its context, accuracy, and usefulness such as the Reconstruction amendments, Emancipation Proclamation, Treaty of Fort Laramie, Chinese Exclusion Act, Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Wilson’s Fourteen Points, New Deal Program Acts, Roosevelt’s Declaration of War, Executive Order 9066, Truman Doctrine, Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Test Ban Treaty of 1963, Brown vs. Board of Education decision, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and the Voting Act of 1965.
• SS-US.9-12.26. Determine multiple and complex causes and effects of historical events in American history including, but not limited to, the Civil War, World War I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
• SS-US.9-12.27. Evaluate Iowans or groups of Iowans who have influenced U.S. History.
• SS-WH.9-12.18. Assess impact of conflict and diplomacy on international relations.
• SS-WH.9-12.23. Critique primary and secondary sources of information with attention to the source of the document, its context, accuracy, and usefulness of sources throughout world history.
• SS-WH.9-12.25. Determine multiple and complex causes and effects of historical events within world history.
• SS-WH.9-12.26. Assess Iowans or groups of Iowans who have influenced world history.