Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler’s
History. We’ve been going through Unit 7 of the AP U.S. History curriculum, and in the last video we
talked about America’s entry into World War II and everything that meant for the homefront. Now it’s
time to talk about the actual fighting of the war, so if you’re ready to get them brian cows
milked Allied-style, then let’s get to it. So I’ll go ahead and ruin the ending for you: the
Allies, of which the United States was a part, won World War II. And I ruined it
because our learning objective for this video went ahead and ruined it
for me: Explain the causes and effects of the victory of the United States
and its allies over the Axis powers. So yeah, the Allies won, but let’s see if we can
figure out exactly how they did it. First of all, just like in World War I, when the United States
entered the war, it signalled a decisive tip in favor of the Allied Powers over the Axis Powers.
And once Americans were committed to the cause, many saw our entry into the war as a fight for
the survival of democracy and, more to the point, freedom against fascist totalitarianism,
especially the Nazi kind. And this commitment was only strengthened later in the war as
German atrocities against the Jews came to light. You see as Allied soldiers took more
and more Axis territory, they began finding Jewish concentration camps in which Jews were
condemned to forced labor if they were lucky, and death if they were not. The full scale of
this atrocity against the Jews only came to light after the war, and it was discovered
that somewhere in the neighborhood of six million Jews had been killed in these camps
and as a result of other campaigns by the Germans. Eventually this tragedy was
named The Holocaust and its brutality only served to justify to Americans that
their involvement in the war was right. Now I’m getting ahead of myself a little,
so let’s go back to the beginning of U.S. entry into World War II. At first, most of the
American effort was poured into the Pacific Theater of war, largely because it was Japan
who had been the aggressor against the U.S. And during the early months of this effort, Japan
very much was winning against the U.S. However, two battles turned the tide of this
theater towards the United States. The first was the Battle of the Coral Sea
and the second was the Battle of Midway, both of which happened in 1942. It’s not important
for you to know the details of these battles, but it will be VERY important for you to know that
as a result of these battles the U.S. was able to push back the Japanese who had conquered a large
portion of key, strategic Pacific territories. So let’s hit pause on the Pacific Theater and go
check in with the European Theater of the war. So before June of 1944, the main defender against
the encroaching Germans was the Russians. So understandably, the Russians urged Britain and
the UNited States to open a second front in the west against Germany. So Stalin, Churchill, and
Roosevelt met in November of 1943 in the Tehran Conference where the plans for opening that
front were laid. It would become known as the D-Day Invasion on the Normandy beaches of
Northern France. Now at this point the Germans had conquered and occupied France and established
a puppet government subservient to their will. And so on June 6th, 1944, the D-Day Invasion
began, and it was the largest amphibious invasion in world history. Over 200,000 Allied troops
landed that day and in the following weeks more than a million more followed. A month later,
after heavy casualties, Allied Forces pushed the Germans back and liberated France. From there
the Allies made the final push towards Berlin. Hitler’s last major offensive assault against
the Allied armies bearing down upon him was known as the Battle of the Bulge in the winter
of 1944-1945. The bulge referred to the strategy of driving a wedge between the ranks of the
Allied armies in Belgium and thus creating the occasion to defeat them. Ultimately, despite
a heavy death toll on both sides, the strategy failed and that was the final toll of the bell
for Hilter’s advances. After that, Allied forces began pushing closer and closer to Berlin, and on
April 30th, Hilter took his own life, and a week later on May 7th, Germany surrendered, a day which
became known as V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day. Alright, now let’s jump back to
the Pacific Theater and see what’s happening over there. After the decisive
Allied victory at the Battle of Midway, the U.S. forces engaged in an island-hopping
campaign. Essentially this just meant that they bypassed heavily fortified Japanese
occupied islands in favor of smaller, less strategic islands, and in doing so
effectively cut off the Japanese supply line. And this strategy was a success
because by cutting off supply lines, the more heavily fortified Japanese holdings
essentially withered for lack of supplies. Now the Pacific Theater of the war was brought
to an end by the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan. So in April of 1945, just as plans
were being made for an offensive against Japan, Franklin Roosevelt died in his fourth term
in office. His vice president, Harry Truman, took his place and the responsibility for
the defeat of Japan was laid upon him. And upon being briefed, Truman learned
that the U.S. and its collaborators had already developed and tested nuclear
bombs under a secretive experiment known as the Manhattan Project. And this was a
truly awe-inspiring and terrible weapon. One atomic bomb had the destructive power
equivalent to 15 kilotons of dynamite. And so Truman made the decision to use this weapon
against Japan in order to force its surrender. On August 6th, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first
atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and then three days later, dropped
another one on Nagasaki. And it was truly devastating. Over the course of about two months, conservative estimates place the death toll
for the two bombs at 140,000, and half of those died in the moment of the blast while the
others died of injuries and radiation poisoning. And since those days, there has been an
endless debate over the morality of that move. On the one hand, it was argued that the Japanese
would never surrender and a land-based invasion would be extremely costly in terms of American
lives. On the other hand, it was argued that these were civilian populations, although there
was some strategic military value to the targets. Whether we’ll ever settle that debate I don’t
know. But the outcome was clear. On September 2, 1945, Japan officially surrendered
in what became known as V-J Day, or victory in Japan day, and the war was over. Okay, that’s what you need to know about
Unit 7 Topic 13 of the AP U.S. History curriculum. If you need more help getting an A
in your class and a five on your exam in May, and want me to keep making them, then
subscribe and I shall oblige, Heimler out.