AMSCO 7.7 Conducting World War II Notes

Overview

AMSCO Topic 7.7, Conducting World War II (AMSCO p. 511-517), covers how governments fought the deadliest war in human history, from Germany's blitzkrieg and Japan's Pacific expansion to total war on the home fronts and the atomic bombs that ended the conflict in 1945. The chapter's big question, and the one the AP World exam cares about, is how governments used similar and different methods to wage war: propaganda, intense nationalism, ideology (fascism and communism), new technology, and total mobilization of civilians. World War II killed around 75 million people, two-thirds of them civilians, and set up the Cold War rivalry that shaped the next five decades.

This chapter picks up where AMSCO 7.6 Causes of World War II leaves off and leads into the mass atrocities of 7.8.

Timeline of key events during World War II. Image courtesy of Riya.

Japan's Imperialist Push in the Pacific

Japan's military-controlled government wanted a "New Order in East Asia," and that ambition is what turned the war global. The Mukden Incident and the takeover of Manchuria (renamed Manchukuo) were the early moves.

• Japan originally eyed Soviet Siberia for expansion, but the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of 1939 closed that option. So Japan pivoted to Southeast Asia, which was controlled by Western European powers and the United States.
• The problem: Japan's occupation of China triggered U.S. economic sanctions. Japan's economy depended on American oil and scrap iron, so sanctions threatened to strangle its economy and stall its military.
• Japan's gamble was to strike the United States militarily, hoping the Western powers would back off and accept Japanese imperial ambitions. That gamble became Pearl Harbor.

Germany's Early Victories in Europe

Hitler's blitzkrieg ("lightning war") strategy used fast-moving tank divisions backed by air power, and it worked terrifyingly well at first. Poland fell in a four-week campaign in September 1939, then Germany and the Soviets split the country as planned under their Nonaggression Pact.

• April 1940: Germany conquered Denmark and Norway. May 1940: the Netherlands, Belgium, and France fell.
• Germany took direct control of northern France. A pro-Nazi puppet government was set up in Vichy under Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain, an aged World War I hero.

Britain Holds Out (and the U.S. Helps)

Fearing it was next, Britain turned to the United States, and Roosevelt moved past American isolationism step by step.

• The 1940 Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement traded 50 U.S. destroyers for eight British air and naval bases in the Western Hemisphere.
• The 1941 Lend-Lease Act dropped any pretense of neutrality by lending war materials to Britain.
• The 1941 Atlantic Charter laid out post-war goals: restoring self-government to peoples deprived of it, abandoning the use of force, and disarming aggressor nations.

In the Battle of Britain (starting July 1940), Hitler sent the Luftwaffe to bomb Britain into submission before an invasion. Germany first hit military bases, then switched to bombing cities after the Royal Air Force raided Berlin. That switch backfired. It gave the British military time to rebuild its bases, and Britain's superior planes and radar destroyed German planes faster than Germany could replace them. Churchill called the civilian endurance of months of bombing Britain's "finest hour." By May 1941, Hitler postponed the invasion indefinitely.

Germany Invades the Soviet Union

In June 1941, Hitler attacked the USSR to wipe out Bolshevism and seize Lebensraum, "living space" for German settlement. The invasion started fast, capturing huge territory and two million Soviet troops, but the harsh Russian winter ground it down. The Siege of Leningrad lasted three years and killed a million Soviet men, women, and children.

Pearl Harbor and a Truly Global War

On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise air attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, destroying much of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Japan then rapidly seized the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, Burma, and many Pacific islands.

• Japan expected the attack to force the U.S. into a quick, favorable settlement. Instead, isolationism disappeared overnight and American public opinion demanded retaliation.
• Britain and China joined the U.S. against Japan, and within days Hitler declared war on the United States. The war was now genuinely global.

Colonial Armies

Western colonies joined the Allied effort in huge numbers. The Indian Army grew from 200,000 men at the war's start to more than 2.5 million, the largest volunteer army in history. It sent troops to North Africa, but most fought the Japanese in Southeast Asia. This is your go-to example for how mobilization extended to colonies, not just home countries.

Home Fronts and Total War

World War II was a total war, meaning governments mobilized everything, including civilians, to win. The comparisons here are exactly what the topic's essential question is about.

• United States: Already the world's strongest industrial power, the U.S. added strict government planning and ramped up production of ships, tanks, planes, landing craft, radar, guns, and ammunition. Unlike anywhere in Europe, American factories faced no threat of military attack. With men enlisting, women filled factory and office jobs, encouraged by government "Rosie the Riveter" art.
• Germany: Instead of mobilizing all citizens, Germany relied on forced labor, some of it in concentration camps. At its peak, 20 percent of the wartime workforce was forced labor, including 600,000 French citizens in German war plants and 1.5 million French soldiers in POW camps. It was counterproductive: workers were treated so badly that productivity stayed low.
• Japan: Home-front efforts were confused. The government pushed an optimistic picture of the war rather than fully mobilizing resources, and it took pride in not drafting women, citing "consideration for the family system." It did successfully ration food and evacuate children from cities when bombing began late in the war.

The Tide Turns, 1942-1943

The second half of 1942 was the turning point in both theaters. The U.S. joined Britain and the USSR as the major Allied powers, and despite political differences they agreed Axis surrender had to be unconditional.

European Theater

• In early 1942, General Erwin Rommel (the "Desert Fox") led German troops in Egypt and threatened Alexandria. The British defeated him at the Battle of El Alamein.
• After months of fighting, a Soviet counteroffensive defeated the German Sixth Army at the Battle of Stalingrad. Germany still held most of Western Europe, but momentum had shifted against the Nazis.

Pacific Theater

• May 1942: the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first Allied victory, stopped a Japanese fleet headed for New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and helped prevent an invasion of Australia.
• June 1942: the Battle of Midway Island destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers and proved Allied naval superiority in the Pacific.
• The first major Allied offensive, on Guadalcanal, ended in Allied victory in early 1943.

Under General Douglas MacArthur, the Allies used island-hopping: attack islands where Japan was weak, skip the ones where it was strong, and move steadily (at great human cost) toward Japan itself. Technology mattered enormously. Aircraft carriers let planes take off and land at sea, extending naval range and flexibility, and submarines sank about 55 percent of the Japanese merchant fleet, wrecking Japan's supply lines.

The Last Years of the War

From 1943 on, the Axis powers were on the defensive everywhere.

Defeating Germany

• The Allies hit Italy first as the weakest Axis point, taking Sicily in July 1943 (which led to Mussolini's fall), invading southern Italy in September, and recapturing Rome on June 4, 1944. Italy turned against Germany.
• D-Day, June 6, 1944: about 150,000 Allied troops under General Dwight Eisenhower launched an amphibious invasion from England onto the beaches of Normandy. Casualties were high, but the Allies established a base and liberated Paris in August.
• The Battle of the Bulge (winter 1944, in the Ardennes Forest across France, Belgium, and Luxembourg) was Germany's last big push. The Allied victory left Germany with no realistic chance of winning. Allied troops crossed the Rhine in March 1945.
• On the Eastern Front, the Soviets won the Battle of Kursk (July 1943), the largest tank battle of the war, by holding a defensive position against German blitzkrieg and then counterattacking. They swept through Ukraine, the Baltic States, Warsaw (January 1945), Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, and advanced on Berlin in April 1945.
• Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, two days after Italian resistance fighters killed Mussolini. Germany surrendered in early May. May 8, 1945 is V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day).

Defeating Japan

• In early 1945, U.S. forces captured Okinawa and Iwo Jima. In March 1945, the fire-bombing of Tokyo killed about 100,000 people and left about a million homeless. Japan's emperor still wouldn't surrender.
• Fearing enormous casualties from invading the Japanese mainland, President Truman ordered the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A second bomb hit Nagasaki three days later. The two bombings caused an estimated 140,000 Japanese civilian deaths and opened the nuclear age.
• Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14. Truman designated September 2, the day of the formal surrender ceremony, as V-J Day.

Consequences of World War II

World War II killed around 75 million people, two-thirds of them civilians, making it the bloodiest war in human history. It transformed how people thought about racism, colonial empires, and international relations, themes that drive the rest of Unit 7 and Units 8-9. It also set up the ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union that shaped global affairs for the next five decades.

Key Terms to Know

Practice and Next Steps

Pair these notes with the Fiveable course study guide for Topic 7.7 Conducting World War II, which frames the same material the way exam questions ask it. Then move to AMSCO 7.8 Mass Atrocities for the Holocaust and other wartime atrocities, and AMSCO 7.9 Causation in Global Conflict to tie Unit 7 together.

To check yourself, run some AP World multiple-choice practice on Unit 7, or try FRQ practice with instant scoring. Comparing how the U.S., Germany, Japan, Britain, and the USSR mobilized for total war is classic comparison-essay material. The full set of Unit 7 chapter summaries lives on the AMSCO notes page.