World War 2 Question

Question

The United States was a relatively late participant in the Second World War, becoming an official belligerent after the December 7th, 1941 attack by the Empire of Japan on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Once it entered the war the U.S. was able to successfully fight on two fronts (Europe and the Pacific) at the same time. Please discuss 3 key reasons why the United States was able to fight two major world powers successfully and win the war on both fronts. Please support your argument with specific historical facts/details in 250 words or more.

Answer 1

When Hitler invaded Russia, Germany faced a war on two fronts, making success far less likely. FDR only got the US involved after Russia was attacked. Hitler had previously a non-aggression pact with Russia, allowing Hitler to focus on Britain primarily.

The US "won" in Europe mostly by allowing Japan to temporarily win in the Pacific. FDR ordered MacArthur to retreat and allow Japan to occupy the Philippines, which was an American territory at the time. Eisenhower was too risk averse, and won mostly due to Gen. Patton. Patton was the Allies' most aggressive general, most respected & feared by the German military. We also won when Germany's best general, Rommel committed suicide after charged with treason.

Japan never would have surrendered until the A bombs were dropped. Still what really made them surrender was Russia violating its non-aggression treaty with Japan. Japan preferred to lose to the US than to Russia.

Tokyo Rose also was credited with providing better intelligence to our Pacific forces than Washington ever did. She, under the nose of the Japanese, would broadcast when Japan would attack. She would say over the radio, "Tonight GI you die" which kept everyone on high alert, awaiting the "surprise" attack which was no longer a "surprise."

Answer 2

In addition to all of the above, the secret sauce of how America's always wins it's all-in wars is that America generally just out-logistics the other guy, and has been doing so since the Civil War. Nobody can produce the non-stop stream of goods and services that America can during a declared war, but it does take time to spin that machine up. It's generally not that U.S. troops are any more ferocious or brilliant fighters. The other guys are usually equally competent or even better, but US troops always have an inexhaustible supply of people, beans, bullets, bandages and air and naval support. To do that, you need a LOT of planes and a lot of ships. That is what makes the difference. Fighting a global world war on two huge fronts is something most countries could never do, but America is one of them. But we weren't stupid about it either. A conscious decision was made to defeat the Germans first, and the Japanese second. Also much lesser known, the top most talented U.S. ground force commanders were sent to Europe, not the Pacific, and it shows in a lot of the ground force battles in both places. Eventually, and as planned, the Germans were defeated in May of 1945 first, and the Japanese probably would have taken another entire year to surrender if we had to invade the Japanese home islands, but the dropping of the two atomic bombs sped this timetable up, with the Japanese surrender only three months later. It's a good thing too, because conservative estimates are that US casualties would have been upwards of 1 million dead and wounded if we had to fully invade and occupy the home islands.