World War 11 Essay

Submitted By anthonychecchio
Words: 796
Pages: 4

Anthony Checchio
United States History
Period: 5

The War of All Wars While watching the film “The War” by Ken Burns, it made me realize how tragic World War II actually was. Before watching the film, I had no idea how expensive, enduring and deadly the war could be. All I knew was that there was a draft and we fought against Hitler and the Nazi regime. By watching the movie I learned about three very important aspects that helped fuel the war such as Pearl Harbor, War Towns and D-Day. Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the end for America being uninvolved in the war. In the movie I learned that the attack on Pearl Harbor was in retaliation to the United States freezing Japanese’s assets and stopping the shipment of gasoline. The United States came to the realization that Japan’s fighting in China was unjust and needed to be stopped. In an effort to stop Japan, the Untied States stopped supplying necessities to Japan to fight in China. This caused conflict between the two powers and the United States came up with a compromise to avoid going to war. The compromise was that Japan would have to clear out of China, but in exchange be allowed to trade again with the United States. Japan, on the other hand, was unwilling to withdraw from China and no agreement was met. It was after cracking secret Japanese codes that the United States realized that Japan decided to go to war. The United States chose to let the Japanese shoot first instead of them. With the news that Japan was preparing for war, President Roosevelt tried to warn his naval bases of the attack that was about to come. He warned naval bases everywhere, but his prediction was that the Japanese where going to attack the Philippians or the British Malaya. Without warning, on December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. This was a shock to the United States because nothing as tragic as this had ever happened in the United States. The Japanese managed to destroy 8 battleships, 164 aircrafts and kill over 2,000 American’s. Three days later the United States declared war on Japan. In the film I learned how important the war towns actually where. Places such as Mobile, Alabama can be recognized as one of the leading manufactures of goods for World War II. The growing unemployment came to a halt during the war. Places such as Mobile became places of mass production. Instead of building things such as cars and radios, companies such as GM and Ford strictly worked on war goods. Ford built B-24 Liberators that had over 1.5 million parts. As we know Ford managed to perfect the assembly line and managed to build a B-24 Liberator in only 63 minutes. This almost guaranteed the United States outcome of the war because more planes where being produced then what could be shot down. By the end of World War II, the Untied States was no longer in a depression and managed to make more than half of all industrial goods in the world. In the film I