The United States returned to its typical isolationist foreign policy after the First World War and President Woodrow Wilson's failure to have the Treaty of Versailles ratified. 4.7.13 Atomic bombing of Japanese citiesĪmerican public opinion was hostile to the Axis, but how much aid to give the Allies was controversial.4.7.3 Marine Aviation and the issue of ground support.4.3 Solomon Islands and New Guinea Campaign.4.2 Fall of the Philippines and Dutch East Indies.In 2020 dollars, the war cost over $4.9 trillion. World War II cost the United States an estimated $341 billion in 1945 dollars – equivalent to 74% of America's GDP and expenditures during the war. The American victorious military effort was strongly supported by civilians on the home front, who provided the military personnel, the munitions, the money, and the morale to fight the war to victory. Berlin fell to the Soviets in May 1945, and with Adolf Hitler dead, the Germans surrendered. Being invaded from all sides, it became clear that Germany would lose the war. Meanwhile, the US Army Air Forces and the British Royal Air Force engaged in the area bombardment of German cities and systematically targeted German transportation links and synthetic oil plants, as it knocked out what was left of the Luftwaffe post Battle of Britain in 1945. Finally the main invasion of France took place in June 1944, under General Dwight D. US forces were first tested to a limited degree in the North African Campaign and then employed more significantly with British Forces in Italy in 1943–45, where US forces, representing about a third of the Allied forces deployed, bogged down after Italy surrendered and the Germans took over. The war in Europe involved aid to Britain, her allies, and the Soviet Union, with the US supplying munitions until it could ready an invasion force. With the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and an invasion of the home islands imminent, Japan surrendered. Strategic bombing directed by General Curtis Lemay destroyed all the major Japanese cities, as the US captured Okinawa after heavy losses in spring 1945. With its merchant fleet sunk by American submarines, Japan ran short of aviation gasoline and fuel oil, as the US Navy in June 1944 captured islands within bombing range of the Japanese home islands. The Army, based in Australia under General Douglas MacArthur, steadily advanced across New Guinea to the Philippines, with plans to invade the Japanese home islands in late 1945. The Pacific War became one of island hopping, so as to move air bases closer and closer to Japan. The Imperial Japanese Navy had the advantage, taking the Philippines as well as British and Dutch possessions, and threatening Australia but in June 1942, its main carriers were sunk during the Battle of Midway, and the Americans seized the initiative. Nimitz, based in Hawaii, in charge of the Pacific War against Japan. The highest priority was the defeat of Germany in Europe, but first the war against Japan in the Pacific was more urgent after the sinking of the main battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor.Īdmiral King put Admiral Chester W. Overall priorities were set by Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired by William Leahy. The Navy, led by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Admiral Ernest King, proved more autonomous. Stimson, who mobilized the nation's industries and induction centers to supply the Army, commanded by General George Marshall and the Army Air Forces under General Hap Arnold. Key civilian advisors to President Roosevelt included Secretary of War Henry L. There were also 130,201 American prisoners of war, of whom 116,129 returned home after the war. In the Pacific Theater, there was unofficial early US combat activity such as the Flying Tigers.ĭuring the war some 16,112,566 Americans served in the United States Armed Forces, with 405,399 killed and 671,278 wounded. Following the " Greer incident" Roosevelt publicly confirmed the "shoot on sight" order on 11 September 1941, effectively declaring naval war on Germany and Italy in the Battle of the Atlantic. Roosevelt in 1937, while supplying Britain, the Soviet Union, and China with war materiel through the Lend-Lease Act which was signed into law on 11 March 1941, as well as deploying the US military to replace the British forces stationed in Iceland. During the first two years of World War II, the United States had maintained formal neutrality as made official in the Quarantine Speech delivered by US President Franklin D. The military history of the United States in World War II covers the victorious Allied war against the Axis Powers, starting with the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Marine Corps with the nation's flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima