Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (Don't Know Much About®) (61 page)

April 28
(Home front) Coastal “blackouts” go into effect along a fifteen-mile strip on the eastern seaboard. Following Pearl Harbor, there are real fears of bombing attacks by Germany as well as the more realistic threat of German U-boats operating in the Atlantic.

May 4–8
(Pacific) The Battle of the Coral Sea. In an early turning point off New Guinea, U.S. Navy planes severely damage a Japanese fleet, forestalling a Japanese invasion of Australia. For the first time in naval history, ships in battle do not engage each other directly; all the fighting is carried out by carrier-launched planes.

May 15
(Home front) Gasoline rationing goes into effect. A few days later, price ceilings on many retail products take effect.

June 3–6
(Pacific) The Battle of Midway. In a major naval confrontation off the small North Pacific island, the U.S. Navy wins another crucial battle in the Pacific war. Although the carrier
Yorktown
is damaged, the Japanese lose four carriers and many of their best-trained pilots, and the Japanese naval advantage is eliminated, ending the threat to Australia. By this time the Japanese control an enormous area extending westward to Burma, north to Manchuria, south to New Guinea, and including the small islands of the Pacific. The territory represents about 10 percent of the Earth’s surface.

June 13
(Home front) Eight German saboteurs land in various spots on the East Coast from submarines. They are quickly captured and tried as spies, and six are executed.

In Washington, two important new agencies are established. The Office of War Information (OWI) will become the government’s wartime propaganda arm and home to numerous writers and filmmakers. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), led by William Donovan (1883–1959), is the country’s espionage agency and forerunner to the postwar CIA.

August 7
(Pacific) In the first U.S. offensive of the war, marines land on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, northeast of Australia. It is the beginning of a two-pronged offensive aimed at dislodging the Japanese from islands that will provide stepping-stones for an eventual invasion of Japan. The war in the Pacific has been given a strategic backseat to the war in Europe, and American Pacific forces will often be poorly supported, lacking ammunition and other supplies. This is the case on Guadalcanal, the first in a series of bloody, savagely fought battles in the Pacific.

August 22
(Europe) The Battle of Stalingrad. The Germans begin an offensive against the city that they expect will complete their conquest of the Soviet Union. This is the beginning of an epic Russian stand that costs hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides, but is a turning point as Hitler’s eastern offensive ends in a harsh failure.

October 25–26
(Pacific) Attempting to stop the American landing on Guadalcanal, the Japanese fleet is met by the U.S. Navy in the Battle of Santa Cruz. The Japanese again suffer heavy aircraft losses.

November 12–15
(Pacific) In the naval battle of Guadalcanal, the U.S. fleet under Admiral William Halsey (1882–1959) destroys a Japanese fleet, sinking twenty-eight warships and transports, rendering the Japanese unable to reinforce their troops on Guadalcanal.

November 18
(Home front) The draft age is lowered to eighteen years.

November 25
(Europe) The three-month siege of Stalingrad has turned against the German army, which is eventually surrounded. By the time the German army surrenders, in February 1943, its casualties will surpass 300,000. The Russian victory marks the end of the German offensive in Russia, and Germany begins its long retreat from the eastern front.

December 1
(Home front) Coffee and gasoline join the list of rationed items.

1943

January 14–24
(Europe) Meeting at the Casablanca Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill map out strategy for the eventual invasion of Europe.

February 7
(Home front) Shoe rationing is announced, limiting civilians to three pairs of leather shoes per year.

February 9
(Pacific) U.S. Marines take control of Guadalcanal after four months of savage combat in which they have been cut off from supplies and were reduced to eating roots.

February 14–25
(Europe) At the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia, the Afrika Korps of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) defeats U.S. forces. But American troops regroup under the new command of George S. Patton (1885–1945) and stop Rommel’s drive. They eventually link up with British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (1887–1976), who was chasing Rommel from Egypt. Probably Germany’s best wartime field commander, Rommel is recalled to Germany and is later involved in a botched attempt to assassinate Hitler, which will lead to Rommel’s suicide.

March 2–4
(Pacific) The U.S. Navy scores another major victory over a Japanese convoy in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea off New Guinea.

April 1
(Home front) Meats, fats, and cheese are now rationed. Attempting to stem inflation, President Roosevelt freezes wages, salaries, and prices.

May 7
(Europe) In a pincer action, Montgomery and Patton link their armies in Tunis, forcing the surrender of all German and Italian troops in North Africa. Ignoring the warnings of Rommel to withdraw these troops, Hitler and Mussolini have pressed more troops into North Africa in a drive aimed at gaining control of the Suez, through which England’s oil supply moves. In a few weeks, more than 250,000 Axis soldiers lay down their weapons. Combined with combat casualties, more than 350,000 Axis troops are killed or captured in North Africa, against 18,500 American casualties.

May 16
(Europe) In Warsaw, Poland, the last fighters in the Jewish ghetto are overwhelmed after their stoic but doomed resistance against the Nazis. The survivors are shipped to death camps, and the ghetto is razed.

May 27
(Home front) President Roosevelt issues an executive order forbidding racial discrimination by government contractors. At about this time, anti-black riots in Detroit leave thirty-four people dead.

May 29
(Home front) An issue of the
Saturday Evening Post
is published with a cover illustration by Norman Rockwell that introduces an American icon known as Rosie the Riveter. The character is a sandwich-munching, brawny, yet innocent-looking woman in coveralls, cradling her rivet gun in her lap, goggles pushed up onto her forehead. Her feet rest on a copy of
Mein Kampf
. Rockwell borrowed the idea for Rosie from a figure in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes. Rockwell’s Rosie is an admiring tribute to the more than 6 million women who have entered the job force during the war, many of them taking up positions in what was considered “man’s work,” including the defense industries.

July 10
(Europe) The invasion of Sicily. Allied forces under General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s command begin an assault that will capture the strategic island by August 17, giving the Allies control of Mediterranean shipping and a base from which to launch an invasion of mainland Italy. Allied casualties in the five weeks of fighting top 25,000, while more than 167,000 Germans and Italians are killed or wounded.

July 19
(Europe) Preceded by an air drop of millions of leaflets calling on Italians to surrender, the Allies begin to bomb targets in and around Rome. Within a week, Mussolini is forced to resign by King Victor Emmanuel, and the new prime minister, Pietro Badoglio, considers an Italian surrender. By September 3, when the Allies launch an invasion of the mainland from Sicily, Prime Minister Badoglio has signed a secret armistice ending Italian military resistance.

September 9
(Europe) The invasion of Salerno. More than 700 ships deliver an Allied invasion force that meets fierce resistance, as the Germans have prepared for this invasion by reinforcing Italy with their best troops. Every inch of the Allied advance is hard-fought, as the Germans are dug into well-defended mountain positions and the Italian winter is one of the harshest on record. By October 1, the port of Naples is in Allied hands, but the departing Germans put the torch to books and museums as retribution for Italy’s “betrayal.” Italy declares war on Germany.

November 20
(Pacific) The Battle of Tarawa. One of the equatorial Gilbert Islands, the Tarawa atoll possesses an airstrip, an important prize in the Pacific fighting. Using British guns captured at Singapore, the Japanese are well defended on the small island of Betio, about half the size of Central Park. Ignoring islanders’ warnings of tricky tides, the landing’s commanders send in waves of marines who are trapped before reaching the beaches. The marines’ casualties total 3,381, although the airstrip is eventually taken.

November 28–December 1
(Europe) The Teheran Conference brings together Roosevelt, Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, the first time all three have met in person. They confer about the coming invasion of Europe.

1944

January 22
(Europe) The invasion of Anzio. Allied forces hit this coastal town near Rome in an attempt to encircle German forces in central Italy. But the Germans pin down the Americans on Anzio’s beach. At the inland monastery town of Monte Cassino, fierce fighting takes a heavy toll on both sides.

January 31
(Pacific) After taking control of the airstrip at Tarawa, the U.S. amphibious invasion force under Admiral Nimitz continues its step-by-step sweep into the North Pacific with an invasion of the Marshall Islands.

February 20–27
(Europe) The U.S. Army Air Corps begins a massive bombing campaign against German aircraft production centers. A week later, on March 6, more than 600 U.S. bombers make their first raid on Berlin. While it is presumed that the strategic bombing has been costly to the German economy and morale, a survey initiated by President Roosevelt will later show that the bombing was devastating but did not work “conclusively.” Just as the British economy has survived the German Blitz, the Germans are able to shift production around with no discernible fall-off.

May 3
(Home front) Meat rationing ends, except for certain select cuts.

May 18
(Europe) The German stronghold at Monte Cassino in central Italy finally falls. It has been under Allied siege for months, a costly campaign of dubious strategic value. A few weeks later, at Anzio, Americans trapped on the beaches for months break through as British troops mount an offensive from Italy’s west. The Allies are driving toward Rome, and arrive in the city on June 4.

June 6
(Europe) D-Day. The Allied invasion of Europe, code-named Operation Overlord, commences just after midnight. The largest invasion force in history, it comprises 4,000 invasion ships, 600 warships, 10,000 planes, and more than 175,000 Allied troops. Although an invasion has been expected by the Germans, the secret of Overlord is well kept. The plan, at the mercy of the weather, includes a feint farther north near Calais, but the true objective is the Normandy coast between Cherbourg and Le Havre—beaches that have been given names like Juno and Sword, Omaha and Utah. It takes four days of fierce fighting and heavy casualties on both sides before the two main beachhead armies are joined. Despite heavy casualties, the Allies send the Germans backward toward Germany, and a million Allied troops are soon on the continent. But this is only the beginning of the end. It will take almost a full year of fierce combat before the German surrender.

June 13
(Europe) Germany launches the world’s first guided missiles, the ramjet-powered V-1 “buzz bombs,” across the English Channel at London; only one reaches its target, but by the end of summer, they kill some 6,000 people. These “vengeance weapons” are the creation of a team of rocket scientists led by Dr. Wernher von Braun, who will become an American citizen in 1955 and boost the American space program.

June 15
(Pacific) B-29 Superfortress bombers, based in China, begin to raid Japan. At the same time, U.S. troops begin an offensive on the Marianas—Saipan, Guam, and Tinian. The first target, Saipan, is supposed to be captured in three days. But these islands have been held by the Japanese for twenty-five years, and their defenses are strong. The battle for Saipan is a monthlong fight that claims 3,400 American lives and more than 27,000 Japanese. A grisly aftermath of the fighting is the mass suicide of civilians who jump from a cliff because Japanese propaganda has warned them of American sadism.