Materials

• Overhead projector
• An outline map of Asia and the Pacific for each student
• Instructions for writing assignment, “What Is War Like?” (Appendix C)
• List of Web sites for use in writing assignment

Instructional Activities

1. Review the content from the previous session, as needed.
   
   
2. Display the following note on the board or overhead:
   
   Americans and the U.S. government mobilized to prepare for war.
   
   Explain to students what was necessary for the United States to move into war mode: opening training bases, inducting draftees and volunteers into the armed services, shifting factory production from peacetime to war goods, rationing consumption of goods necessary for the war effort, and selling war bonds to finance the war.
   
   
3. Display the following notes on the board or overhead:
   
   Most American military resources were targeted for Europe in a strategy to “Defeat Hitler First.” The Allies, namely Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States, were united in this strategy.
   
   The Allies began a strategy of island hopping, or capturing one island at a time in order to reach Japan. Planes attacked Japanese war ships, and submarines attacked Japanese merchant ships.
   
   Ask, “Was America prepared for war? Would the United States be able to fight on two fronts?” Why, or why not?
   
   
4. Display the following notes on the board or overhead:
   
   Germany sought to defeat the Soviet Union and force Britain out of the war before the United States could mobilize her war power.
   
   After Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded many Southeast Asian and Pacific territories, including the Philippines and Indonesia, and had plans to invade Australia and Hawaii.
   
   Japan’s leaders hoped that the United States would accept Japanese dominance in Southeast Asia and the Pacific rather than conduct a bloody and costly war to retake these areas.
   
   Distribute an outline map of Asia and the Pacific and instruct students to annotate their map with the events discussed thus far.
   
   
5. Display the following notes on the board or overhead:
   
   Britain fought Germans in North Africa, especially in Egypt, to prevent Hitler from controlling the Suez Canal, gateway to Middle East oil.
   
   In the battle of El Alamein in 1942, Germany’s Field Marshal Rommel was stopped 200 miles from Suez Canal.
   
   Ask, “Why do you think there was war in North Africa?”
   
   
6. Introduce the topic of the writing assignment, “What Is War Like?” Distribute and discuss the instructions and expectations for this assignment, as well as some of the Web resources available. Give students the dates for completing their reference-book research and computer research.
   
   
7. Instruct students to add important events through 1942 to their chronology worksheet.