Unit #6: Remembering the Wars

Part 1: World War II – Europe

Part 2: World War II – The Pacific

Part 3: The Vietnam War

Part 1: The War in Europe

Countries Suffer after WWI

• Many European countries at this time were still trying to

recover from World War I.

• The Allied powers that won the war had expected the enemy

countries like Germany to pay for the damages of World War I.

• However, Germany, who was also going through an economic

depression, didn’t have enough money to do this.

Countries Turn to Fascism• Although the United States and other

countries like England and France went

through a depression in the 1930s, they

were able to keep their democratic form

of government.

• However, this wasn’t the case for

countries like Italy and Germany.

• Fascist governments started becoming

attractive to countries looking for a

strong leader to lead them out of

economic depression.

• These governments promised to revive

the economy, punish those people

responsible for the hard times, and

restore order and national pride.

Hitler and the Nazis

• Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist

German Worker’s party, commonly called

the Nazis, came into power in 1933 at the

height of the Great Depression.

• Hitler ruled as a dictator, an all-powerful

ruler who was full of passionate intensity.

• He set out to avenge Germany’s defeat in

World War I and to create a new German

state called the Third Reich.

• He told his followers, “Close your eyes to

pity! Act brutally!”

• Hitler rebuilt Germany’s economy by

preparing for another war.

• His army built tanks, guns, and other war

supplies.

• Like a tidal wave, the Axis powers (Japan, Italy, and Germany) began taking over

other countries.

• World War II began on 3rd September 1939 after Germany invaded Poland.

• Even though the British and French declared war on Germany, these countries were

not able to stop Germany from invading and taking over other countries.

Germany Continues to Fight• After war was declared, Germany and the Axis Powers continued

their attack.

• In May of 1940 the Axis armies turned west and invaded France and

the Netherlands.

• By June 1940 France had surrendered to the Germans.

• Hitler’s last remaining enemy in Western Europe, Great Britain, now

stood alone.

The U.S. Remains Neutral

• For the following nine months, the German air force (Luftwaffe)

launched repeated bombing raids on British towns and cities.

• This was known as the BLITZ and was an attempt to bomb Britain

into submission.

• Although the United States provided financial support to the forces

fighting against the Axis Powers, the United States had remained

technically neutral in World War II.

• The bombing of Pearl Harbor would soon change this.

• Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on

December 7, 1941.

• The day after the attack at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt

asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

• Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the war had been seen by

many Americans as a foreign problem.

• However, this attitude melted in the outrage over Japan’s attack.

Sides are Drawn

Axis Powers

• Germany

• Japan

• Italy

• Italy and Germany, Japan’s allies, declared war on the U.S.

three days after the U.S. declared war on Japan.

• The U.S. entry into the war turned the tide in favor of the

Allies, but it was a long, hard fight.

Allied Powers• United States

• Britain

• France

• Soviet Union

American Literature Reflects the War

• Entering into WWII ended the Great Depression in the United States.

• New jobs were created as the U.S. produced more and more airplanes, tanks, and other war supplies.

• World War II also changed American literature as well.

• American writers created novels, autobiographies, and poetry that explored the effects of war on individuals.

WWI vs. WWII Literature• The literature that emerged from the experience of World War II is

distinctly different from that of World War I.

• Unlike the disillusionment that characterized the literature of World

War I, most of World War II literature is neither pessimistic nor

antiwar.

• Instead, it presents war in its complexity as a tragic but perhaps

inevitable part of the human condition.

• It also shows a nation that was united and confident in its powers to

endure and to lead.

Reflecting on “The Good War”• Reflecting the views of their own

generation, authors writing about

World War II generally accepted

the justness of that war.

• Their literature also shows the

necessity of ridding the world of

the oppressive powers of the

regimes of the Nazis and

Japanese.

• World War II literature helped to

make that war, later called the

"good war," a defining moment in

affirming America's democratic

values and the nation's identity as

a moral people.

The Holocaust• As the Nazis surged across Europe, Hitler targeted certain groups

for extermination – political dissenters, homosexuals, mental

patients, Gypsies, Poles, Slavs, and especially Jews.

• By late 1942 the Nazis had set up six death camps in Poland,

where thousands of Jews were gassed each day.

• In all, approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered

in what became known as the Holocaust.

“Armistice”• The first story that we will read in this

unit is Bernard Malamud’s “Armistice.”

• Set in New York City while the war

rages in Europe, the story reveals the

roots of the kind of racial hatred that

fueled the Holocaust.

• The armistice, or truce, between the

two American characters at the end of

the story seems unsatisfactory and

temporary, just like the armistice

signed by Germany and the allied

European and U.S. forces at the end

of World War I.

• The next two

selections in this part

of the unit deal with

the experience of

ordinary combat

soldiers: Randall

Jarrell’s poem “The

Death of the Ball Turret

Gunner” and John

Steinbeck’s essay

“Why Soldiers Won’t

Talk.”

• Both Randall Jarrell

and John Steinbeck

had war-related

experiences during

World War II.

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”

• Randall Jarrell has been called

“America’s foremost poet of World War

II.”

• Jarrell served in the U.S. Army Air

Force, teaching flight navigation in

Arizona.

• He thus gained firsthand experience

with fighter planes and gunners.

• His jolting poem “The Death of the Ball

Turret Gunner” recalls the terror of

aerial warfare, in which combatants felt

painfully vulnerable under the fire of a

faceless enemy.

• A ball turret, mentioned in the title of the

poem, was a Plexiglas bubble on the

underside of certain planes.

• From it, a machine gunner fired at the

enemy during combat.

Jarrell’s Poetry on WWII• In praise of Jarrell’s poetry, critic Suzanne

Ferguson wrote, “The motif of the soldier as a

child who barely learns the meaning of his life

before he loses it, who lives and dies in a

dream,…is developed in one striking poem

after another.”

• In his poetic stance toward World War II,

Randall Jarrell often took the part of the dead

who sought to understand the reasons for

their deaths.

• In such poems as “A Pilot from the Carrier,”

“Second Air Force,” and “Siegfried,” the

speakers ask questions about their deaths.

• Also, like the speaker of “The Death of the Ball

Turret Gunner,” the speakers of these poems

present themselves as children who have

barely learned the meaning of life before

dying.

“Why Soldiers Won’t Talk.”• John Steinbeck, writer of famous

Depression-era novels Of Mice and

Men and The Grapes of Wrath, is also

known for some of his pieces on World

War II.

• Steinbeck, whose work always speaks

with sympathy for the common people,

also reflects the point of view of the

fighting soldier in his essay “Why

Soldiers Won’t Talk.”

• Steinbeck gained combat experience

while working as a news correspondent

during World War II.

• To gather information for his

dispatches, he spent time with a Flying

Fortress unit in England, reported from

North Africa, and accompanied

frontline troops during the Allied

invasion of Italy.

Band of Brothers• In addition to these selections in your literature book, we will

also read some survival stories from soldiers.

• Some of these soldier’s war experiences were chronicled in

the 2001 HBO mini-series called Band of Brothers.

• We will also watch an episode of this show as a conclusion

to part 1 of this unit.

The War in Europe Ends

• The war with Europe ended with the fall of Berlin

and the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945.

• However, the Japanese were not ready to

surrender, and the war in the Pacific continued to

rage on.