World War 2 America essay
The era of the second world war runs from 1939 to 1945 a time period of 6 years, it is the largest recorded conflict and involved most of the world’s countries and militaries. The war started when German troops lead by the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st September 1939(1). The war started to escalate on the 3rd September 1939 when after Britain’s warning to Germany to cease operations in Poland went ignored, Britain and France declared war on Germany. As the war developed further the world became divided as nations allied with either Germany or Britain and France, this split the world into two factions, the Allies and the Axis. The Allies consisting of the U.S.A, Britain, France, USSR, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia and the Axis consisting of Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria(2). However not all of these countries joined the war effort immediately, for example the USA did not join the war effort until 1941 when they were forced into action by the bombing of Pearl Harbour by Japan(3). World War two was the most widespread war in history involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries, this meant that the world went into a state classified as ‘Total war’ which is when the nations involved put all of their efforts and resources into the war effort, often merging the lines between civilian and military in that nation. It is estimated that around 75 million people died in the war, although there are no set figures, this is because many deaths went unrecorded or were listed as MIA(missing in action), out of those deaths it is estimated that around 25 million were military personnel and 40-50 million civillians(4).
At the start of the war morale was high as many young people had never seen war before and therefore were excited to go and fight the Nazis. At the start of the war men could join the forces once they were 18 however with all of the excitement, some boys as young as 16 lied about their age so that they could go and fight, and many got away with it because the government wanted as many soldiers as possible on the frontlines. However as war progressed the government was forced to conscript men into the army from certain states but to lessen the shock started to use are to swing people’s opinions and keep morale high.
This art was propaganda, and while it was not invented during World War two it evolved into a new style during the war. Propaganda was used to keep morale up by portraying positive images of American troops on the front lines and often using women in the art to either get men to join or to get women to enrol in the factories and ‘help at home’, this art was done in a style not too different from the comic style of superheroes that we are used to today and was very effective in manipulating large numbers of the population into doing what the government wanted.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001288.html
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/world-wide-deaths.html