Americans in the World War II

In September 1939, war erupted in Europe. The policy of the United States was to be neutral but not indifferent. The United States gave the British 50 overage destroyers in return for naval bases in the Western Atlantic in the time when Great Britain was threatened by German invasion. During the war, USA lent $ 13.5 thousand million in war supplies to Britain and another $9 thousand million to the Soviet Union.

The United States entered the war on 7 December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The States played a leading part in the war in the Far East, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy. The famous Supreme Commander of the allied forces was General Dwight David Eisenhower. Under his command all Africa was cleared of the enemy within a short time. In 1943 the Allies landed in Italy and after two years of hard fighting German armies were forced to surrender. With the help of United States, France and Belgium were liberated in 1944.

In February 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met in Yalta in the Crimea where they discussed the problem of arranging zones of occupation in Germany. They continued the work of the Yalta Conference in May 1945 in Potsdam. The USA was represented there by Harry Truman, who became the President after Roosevelt's death. Roosevelt died in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war in Europe. Truman represented the right wing of the Democratic Party. In hopes of inducing Japanese to surrender and thus avoiding heavy casualties in an invasion of Japan, he made a controversial decision. On 6 August 1945 he ordered the use of an atomic bomb (Project Manhattan) against Hiroshima and on 9 August against Nagasaki. After these attacks Japan agreed to surrender (14 August). Nearly 200,000 civilians died in the nuclear attacks. The war came to an end and it strengthened the position of the USA.