-
Lend-lease Act
the president would lend or lease arms and other supplies to “any country whose defense was vital to the United States.” -
War Productions Board
The War Production Board was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board and the Office of Production Management. -
Office of Price Administration
The Office of Price Administration (OPA) was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War II. -
Pearl Harbor Attack
The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor with the expectation that once Americans had experienced Japan’s power, they would shrink from further conflict. -
Battle of the Atlantic
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler ordered submarine raids against ships along America’s east coast. The German
aim in the Battle of the Atlantic was to prevent food and war materials from reaching Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Britain depended on supplies from the sea. -
Battle of Stalingrad
In the summer of 1942, the Germans took the offensive in the southern Soviet Union. Hitler hoped to capture Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus Mountains. He also wanted to wipe out Stalingrad, a major industrial center on the Volga River. The Soviet army closed around Stalingrad, trapping the Germans in and around the city and cutting off their supplies. The Germans’ situation was hopeless, but Hitler’s orders came: “Stay and fight! I won’t go back from the Volga.” -
Operation Torch
an invasion of Axis-controlled North Africa, commanded by
American General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In November 1942, some 107,000 Allied troops, the great majority of them Americans, landed in Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers in North Africa. -
US convoy system
Convoys were groups of ships traveling together for mutual protection, as they had done in the First World War. The convoys were escorted across the Atlantic by destroyers equipped with sonar for detecting submarines underwater. They were also
accompanied by airplanes that used radar to spot U-boats on the ocean’s surface -
Internment
Citizens feared that the Japanese would soon attack the United States. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed an order requiring the removal of people of Japanese ancestry from California and parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. -
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps on 15 May 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States as the WAC on 1 July 1943. -
Unconditional surrender
the two leaders agreed to accept only the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers. That is, enemy nations would have to accept whatever terms of peace the Allies dictated. They also discussed where to strike next. The Americans argued that the best approach to victory was to assemble a massive invasion fleet in Britain and to launch it across the English Channel, through France, and into the heart of Germany. Churchill, however, thought it would be safer to first attack Italy. -
Bloody Anzio
lasted four months—until the end of May 1944—and left about 25,000 Allied and 30,000 Axis casualties. During the year after Anzio, German armies continued to put up strong resistance. The effort to free Italy did not succeed until 1945, when Germany itself was close to collapse -
Korematsu v. United States
that the government’s policy of evacuating Japanese
Americans to camps was justified on the basis of “military necessity.” -
D-Day
June 6, 1944, the first day of the invasion. Shortly after midnight, three divisions parachuted down behind German lines. They were followed in the early morning hours by thousands upon
thousands of seaborne soldiers the largest land-sea-air
operation in army history. -
Battle of Bulge
last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, and took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. -
Hitler's Death
Hitler shot himself while his new wife swallowed poison. In accordance with Hitler’s orders, the two bodies were carried outside, soaked with gasoline, and burned -
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day. The war in Europe was finally over. -
Harry S. Truman
April 12, 1945, while posing for a portrait in Warm Springs, Georgia, the president had a stroke and died. That night, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the nation’s 33rd president. -
Manhattan project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada.
