# data[].attributes.body
https://www.britannica.com/place/Sudetenland
https://study.com/learn/lesson/sudetenland-annexation-ww2-german-invasion-czechoslovakia.html
The deal between the Germans and the Soviets over the occupation of Poland.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sudetenland Annexation in WW2 | When Did Germany Invade Czechoslovakia? - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Explore the significance of the Sudetenland to WW2 and locate it on a map. Learn how the annexation of Sudetenland led to the German invasion of…

# data[].attributes.body
The deliberate attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNV8enpVwok

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Path to Pearl Harbor | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, decimating the US Pacific Fleet. When Germany and Italy declared war on the United States days later, America found itself in a global war.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/liberation-of-philippines-cecilia-gaerlan
The entire Philippine nation was ravaged and its capital Ma- nila, once called the Pearl of the Orient, became the second most devastated city during World War II after Warsaw, Poland. Approximately one million civilians perished.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Liberation of the Philippines 1945 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The final liberation of the Philippines at the end of World War II released Filipinos from years of torment—but recognition of their courage and sacrifice was slow in coming.

# data[].attributes.body
The Battle of Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. The Japanese tried to launch another surprise attack on the rest of our Pacific fleet. The US Navy, however, cracked the Japanese Naval codes and were able to defeat the Japanese.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/battle-midway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-au50GxIXw

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Battle of Midway | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of Japan’s main goals during World War II was to remove the United States as a Pacific power in order to gain territory in east Asia and the southwest Pacific islands. Japan hoped to defeat the US Pacific Fleet and use Midway as a base to attack Pearl Harbor, securing dominance in the region and…

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Guadalcanal
The battle marked the first time since entering the war that the United States had gone on the offensive and attacked the Japanese. The battle lasted six months from August 7, 1942 to February 9, 1943.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teYvYlDmMtA&t=2s

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article was most recently revised and updated by

Battle of Guadalcanal, (August 1942-February 1943), series of World War II land and sea clashes between Allied and Japanese forces on and around Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, in the South Pacific. Along with the naval Battle of Midway (June 3-6, 1942), the fighting on Guadalcanal marked a turning point in favour of the Allies in the Pacific War.

The naval campaign at Guadalcanal

Landings in the southern Solomons and the Battle of Savo Island

On July 6, 1942, the Japanese moved a force consisting of troops and labourers to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and began constructing an airfield. The Allies recognized that land-based planes operating from this field would seriously menace bases in the New Hebrides and New Caledonia as well as Port Moresby in New Guinea. Immediate steps were taken to eject the Japanese, utilizing forces that were available in the South Pacific.

On August 7, 1942, some 6,000 men of the U.S. 1st Marine Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, launched an amphibious assault on Guadalcanal and Florida Island, surprising Guadalcanal's 2,000 Japanese defenders. The landings were made with strong naval and air support and met with little initial resistance, and the airfield on Guadalcanal and the harbour on Florida Island were seized in the first 36 hours. The Marines named the airstrip Henderson Field, after Maj. Lofton Henderson, a Marine aviator who had perished while leading a bombing run at the Battle of Midway the previous month. Henderson Field would quickly become the centre of gravity for the conflict on Guadalcanal.

The Japanese reacted quickly, and just before 2:00 am on August 9 they struck hard at the Allied naval force supporting the operation. A force of Japanese cruisers and destroyers engaged the Allied fleet in a furious night battle that came to be called the Battle of Savo Island. The result was a disaster for the Allies. Over the course of roughly a half hour, the Japanese sank the U.S. cruisers Astoria, Quincy, and Vincennes and crippled the Australian cruiser Canberra while suffering negligible losses. Over the following months, some two dozen Japanese and Allied ships would be sunk in the waters to the north of Guadalcanal; the sea lane between Guadalcanal and Florida Island would subsequently be known to Allied sailors as Ironbottom Sound.

The Battles of the Eastern Solomons, Cape Esperance, and Santa Cruz

Japanese forces began gathering at Rabaul, New Britain, some 650 miles (roughly 1,050 km) northwest of Guadalcanal, and Vice Adm. Robert Ghormley responded by concentrating Task Force 61, under Rear Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher, southeast of Guadalcanal. The carriers USS Enterprise and USS Saratoga and the battleship USS North Carolina were supported by numerous cruisers and destroyers, as well as land-based aircraft from Henderson Field. On August 24 contact was made with the powerful 1st Carrier Division under Nagumo Chūichi, and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons ensued. Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers from the Saratoga sank the Japanese light carrier Ryujo, and Saratoga dive-bombers seriously damaged the seaplane carrier Chitose. The Enterprise was struck by dive-bombers from the Japanese carrier Shokaku, and a fire deep in the ship caused its rudder to jam. It spent nearly an hour steaming in a circle before control was restored; if a second wave of Japanese planes had not followed an erroneous position report on the American carriers, the Enterprise almost certainly would not have survived the day.

Both sides withdrew their ships from the area by midnight, and a Japanese resupply convoy under the command of Rear Adm. Tanaka Raizō attempted to force its way through to Guadalcanal without the benefit of air cover on the morning of August 25. Dive-bombers from Guadalcanal struck Tanaka's flagship, the cruiser Jintsū, and inflicted heavy damage on a Japanese troop ship. U.S. Army Air Forces B-17s scored a direct hit on the destroyer Mutsuki, sinking it. Tanaka was forced to retire, but he quickly revised his tactics, and his destroyer squadron-the so-called "Toyko Express"-would ferry tens of thousands of Japanese troops and tons of vital supplies to Guadalcanal over the following months.

During the next six weeks, no major action took place in the Solomons, although Japanese planes and submarines continued to harass the U.S. resupply effort, and Japanese surface ships shelled Henderson Field. The most notable loss during this time was the carrier USS Wasp, which was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-19 on September 15. That single torpedo attack also fatally struck the destroyer USS O'Brien and damaged the USS North Carolina. The Japanese resupplied and reinforced their positions at Guadalcanal with nightly runs of the "Tokyo Express," and Tanaka would earn a reputation as arguably the most gifted destroyer captain in the Pacific War. Just before midnight on the night of October 11, five U.S. cruisers and four destroyers under the command of Rear Adm. Norman Scott intercepted a strong Japanese surface force that was en route to Henderson Field. In the ensuing Battle of Cape Esperance, the Japanese lost the heavy cruiser Furutaka and the destroyer Fubuki, while the Americans lost the destroyer USS Duncan.

Two weeks later the much larger Battle of Santa Cruz occurred against the backdrop of a major Japanese ground offensive on Guadalcanal. U.S. commanders were anticipating a Japanese attack, and Vice Adm. William ("Bull") Halsey, who had succeeded Ghormley as commander of U.S. naval forces in the South Pacific on October 18, concentrated his available assets into two carrier battle groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which had spent nearly a month at Pearl Harbor undergoing repairs, sailed with the battleship USS South Dakota, the heavy cruiser USS Portland, and a screen of light cruisers and destroyers. The carrier USS Hornet was supported by the heavy cruisers USS Northampton and USS Pensacola and a light cruiser and destroyer escort. Against this force was arrayed Vice Adm. Nagumo Chūichi's fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku-both of which had participated in the Pearl Harbor attack-the light carrier Zuiho, the escort carrier Junyo, four battleships, and an assortment of destroyers and other support craft. The two forces met north of Guadalcanal on October 26, and the result was a tactical victory for Japan. The Hornet was sunk, as was the destroyer USS Porter, and the Enterprise was seriously damaged. Nagumo was forced to retire, however, as the Zuiho and the Shokaku had suffered numerous bomb hits and the loss of nearly 100 aircraft had left him without a significant portion of his naval air complement. The Japanese retreat bought the Americans a much needed breathing spell.

The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal

The climax of sea fighting in the Solomons came in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (November 12-15, 1942). On November 11-12, the U.S. landed a sizable contingent of reinforcements and supplies on the island. At roughly the same time, a fleet of Japanese transports, carrying some 7,000 men, steamed southward from Rabaul behind an escort of several battleships and a large screen of cruisers and destroyers. When the Americans detected this force descending on their vulnerable transports and cargo vessels, they dispatched a force of cruisers and destroyers to fight a delaying action. The result was a series of violent confrontations that inflicted heavy losses on both sides, but left the United States in a position of strength in the southern Solomons.

Just after midnight on November 13, the U.S. task force, under the command of Rear Adm. Daniel Callaghan, engaged Japanese ships commanded by Vice Adm. Abe Hiroaki. The battle that followed was a brutal 24-minute melee that saw capital ships on both sides blasting away at extremely close range. The Japanese lost the battleship Hiei while the U.S. lost the cruisers USS Atlanta and USS Juneau as well as several destroyers. Callaghan and Rear Adm. Norman Scott were killed in the engagement; they were the only two flag officers of the U.S. Navy to be killed in a surface engagement in World War II.

On November 14 Japanese cruisers and destroyers shelled Henderson Field, and another invasion force was discovered north of Guadalcanal. The Japanese ships were subjected to air attacks throughout the day, and that night they were engaged by the battleships USS Washington and USS South Dakota. About midnight, contact was made north of Savo Island, and another fierce night action ensued. The Japanese lost the battleship Kirishima and the heavy cruiser Kinugasa, and the U.S. lost three more destroyers.

The land campaign on Guadalcanal

The initial amphibious assault on the southern Solomons represented a superb coordination of Allied naval, air, and ground forces. Warships laid down heavy barrages to screen the approach of troop transports and carrier-based planes, and U.S. Army Air Forces bombers softened Japanese defenses. Landing craft took the Marines ashore at key points throughout the islands. The Marines rapidly secured a beachhead on Guadalcanal and captured the almost-complete airstrip that would become Henderson Field. They also seized the smaller islands of Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanombogo. While the Japanese construction units on Guadalcanal were overcome with comparative ease-or simply melted away into the jungle-the defenders of Tulagi and Gavatu included elements of the elite Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF), and they fought desperately. The battle for Tulagi saw the Japanese garrison destroyed virtually to the last man; this would serve as a grim preview of later engagements in the U.S. campaign in the Pacific.

Almost as soon as the U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Japanese commanders began making preparations for the retaking of the island. Vandegrift had concentrated some 11,000 Marines into a tight defensive perimeter centred on Henderson Field. He had been warned of an imminent attack, thanks to the efforts of U.S. cryptanalysts, who had penetrated the Japanese naval code. The Japanese, believing that the Americans had withdrawn many of their troops after the stinging defeat at Savo Island, vastly underestimated the strength of the U.S. presence on Guadalcanal. In the predawn hours of August 21, the Japanese launched their first ground offensive on Guadalcanal. At the Battle of the Tenaru (also called the Battle of Alligator Creek), U.S. Marine defenders annihilated a force of some 900 veteran Japanese army troops east of Henderson Field.

Shelling by Japanese ships and aerial bombardment from Japanese planes became routine, but the U.S. defenders were able to cling to their narrow toehold on Guadalcanal, thanks in part to the efforts of the so-called " Cactus Air Force," a motley collection of Marine, U.S. Army Air Forces, and U.S. Navy aviators operating out of Henderson Field. Cactus Air Force pilots shot down more than 150 Japanese planes in the first five weeks of the battle, and Henderson's bomber contingent pounded Japanese warships and transports. On September 13-14, U.S. Marine Corps Col. Merritt ("Red Mike") Edson, the 800 Marines of the 1st Raider Battalion, and a handful of Marine parachute troops were subjected to one of the most intense assaults on Henderson Field thus far, when they were attacked by a Japanese force more than three times their size. Their tenacious defense in what came to be called the Battle of Edson's Ridge helped to cement the reputation of the Raiders in Marine lore and earned Edson the Medal of Honor.

The Japanese forces on the island reached a peak strength of 36,000 troops by October, but they were unable to overwhelm the Americans' defensive perimeter and retake the airfield. The hardest fighting occurred on October 24-25, when a single Marine battalion was all that stood between Henderson Field and two Japanese regiments. The 1st Battalion of the 7th Marine Division, commanded by Lieut. Col. Chesty Puller, repelled the Japanese assault and inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers. Reinforced by soldiers of the 164th Infantry Regiment, the first U.S. Army unit to land on Guadalcanal, Puller's Marines weathered repeated Japanese charges and held their positions. Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone was awarded the Medal of Honor for "conspicuous gallantry" during the engagement, and Puller received his third Navy Cross (of an eventual five). By November the U.S. Navy was able to land reinforcements on Guadalcanal faster than the Japanese, and Allied counterattacks had steadily pushed the Japanese toward the northwest part of the island.

In December the 1st Marine Division was withdrawn after four months of intense combat, and the U.S. 25th Infantry Division began arriving on Guadalcanal. At the start of 1943, Allied combat strength on Guadalcanal stood at two U.S. Army divisions and a Marine regiment, totaling some 44,000 troops. Offensive operations continued through January 1943, narrowing and compressing the Japanese position. During the first week of February, light surface craft began evacuating the 12,000 remaining Japanese troops from Guadalcanal. On February 8, 1943, almost exactly six months after the initial landings, the last remaining Japanese pocket of resistance was eliminated, and Guadalcanal was at last firmly in Allied hands.

Outcome and casualties

Although U.S. losses were heavy in both the naval and ground campaigns, the Battle of Guadalcanal was decisive in that U.S. positions in the southern Solomons were never again seriously threatened. The Japanese lost a total of 24,000 men killed in the Battle of Guadalcanal, while the Americans sustained 1,600 killed, 4,200 wounded, and several thousand dead from malaria and other tropical diseases. The various naval battles cost each side 24 warships: the Japanese lost 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 1 light carrier, 11 destroyers, and 6 submarines, while the Americans lost 8 cruisers, 2 heavy carriers, and 14 destroyers.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Michael Ray.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battle of Guadalcanal | Facts, Map, & Significance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Battle of Guadalcanal, (August 1942-February 1943), series of World War II land and sea clashes between Allied and Japanese forces on and around Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, in the South Pacific. Along with the naval Battle of Midway (June 3-6, 1942), the fighting on Guadalcanal marked a turning point in favour of the Allies in the Pacific War.

# data[].attributes.body
Stalingrad was the attempted invasion of the Soviet Union by the Nazis. The Germans underestimated the determination and the cold of the Soviet Union.
Battle of Stalingrad | History, Summary, Location, Deaths, & Facts | Britannica
WW2: Battle Of Stalingrad (Intense Footage) - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Battle of Stalingrad | History, Summary, Location, Deaths, & Facts | Britannica

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Battle of Stalingrad, successful Soviet defense of the city of Stalingrad that was a turning point in favor of the Allies in World War II. Russians consider it to be one of the greatest battles of their Great Patriotic War, and most historians consider it to be the greatest battle of the entire conflict.

# data[].attributes.body
The battle strategy used by the USA to take the pacific islands back from Japan.
The Pacific Strategy, 1941-1944 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)
Island Hopping Strategy | US HISTORY HELP: World War II - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, severely damaging the US Pacific Fleet. When Germany and Italy declared war on the United States days later, America found itself in a global war. Japan launched a relentless assault that swept through the US territories of Guam, Wake Island, and the Philippines, as well as British-controlled Hong Kong, Malaya, and Burma. Yet, with much of the US fleet destroyed and a nation unprepared for war, America and its allies decided they needed to save Great Britain and defeat Germany first.

The Japanese, meanwhile, sought to complete what they began at Pearl Harbor. They aimed to destroy the US carrier fleet in a victory so decisive that the United States would negotiate for peace. With its battleship fleet crippled in Hawaii, the US Navy turned to two surviving assets. Aircraft carriers and submarines mounted a serious challenge to Japan's triumphant fleet and were critical to protecting mainland America. But as US attacks on Japanese naval forces and merchant ships escalated from isolated raids to full-scale battles, the learning curve proved costly and deadly.

Blunting the Japanese Onslaught
Throughout the winter and spring of 1942 the war news reaching the United States from the Pacific was grim. The Japanese amassed a vast new empire with a defensive perimeter that ranged from western Alaska to the Solomon Islands. In the southwest Pacific, Japan threatened American supply lines to Australia, complicating US plans to use Australia as a staging ground for offensive action.

But within months, the tide of battle started to turn as the United States and its allies in Australia and New Zealand first blunted Japan's advance and then began a long counterattack across the Pacific. The amphibious invasion soon became the hallmark of the Allied counterattack. As they advanced westward toward Japan, Allied forces repeatedly bombed and stormed Japanese-held territory, targeting tiny islands as well as the jungles of New Guinea and the Philippines. The goal was to dislodge the enemy and to secure airfields and supply bases that could serve as the launching points for future attacks.

Turning Points
In early May 1942, US and Japanese carrier forces clashed in the Battle of the Coral Sea. While both sides suffered major losses, the US Navy checked a major Japanese offensive for the first time. Then, in the Battle of Midway the following month, US carrier aircraft dealt a devastating blow to the Japanese navy, destroying four aircraft carriers. The battle marked the first major US victory against Japan and was a turning point in the war.
By shifting the balance of naval power in the Pacific, Midway allowed US forces to take the offensive for the first time. The Allies soon set their sights on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and on New Guinea.

Amphibious Invasions and Island Hopping
In August 1942, the United States mounted its first major amphibious landing in World War II at Guadalcanal, using innovative landing craft built by Higgins Industries in New Orleans. By seizing a strategic airfield site on the island, the United States halted Japanese efforts to disrupt supply routes to Australia and New Zealand. The invasion ignited a ferocious struggle marked by seven major naval battles, three major land battles, and almost continuous air combat as both sides sought to control Henderson Field, named after Loy Henderson, an aviator killed at the Battle of Midway. For six long months US forces fought to hold the island. In the end they prevailed, and the Allies took the first vital step in driving the Japanese back in the Pacific theater.

With Guadalcanal in American hands, Allied forces continued to close in on Rabaul in New Britain. As forces under the command of Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey moved north through the Solomons, General Douglas MacArthur's troops pushed west along the northern coast of Papua New Guinea, grinding out a hard-fought victory by March 1943. But rather than follow this success with a risky invasion of the heavily defended Rabaul, American military planners hatched an ingenious plan: Allied planes and ships would isolate and neutralize Rabaul from the air and sea while the bulk of MacArthur's forces pushed westward to invade less-well-defended islands. This practice-skipping over heavily fortified islands in order to seize lightly defended locations that could support the next advance-became known as island hopping. As Japanese strongholds were isolated, defenders were left to weaken from starvation and disease. This new strategy turned the vast Pacific distances into an American ally, and the United States used it to leapfrog across the Pacific.

Like this article? Read more in our online classroom.

From the Collection to the Classroom: Teaching History with The National WWII Museum

Learn More

Advancing on Two Fronts
In addition to hopping from one less-defended island to another, the Allies' Pacific strategy developed another key feature: soldiers, sailors, and US Marines pressed forward on two fronts. As MacArthur's troops leapt from island to island in the southwest Pacific, a central Pacific campaign began with the invasion of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands in November 1943. By the end of the year, a two-pronged assault on Japan was well underway.

As 1944 began, the southwest Pacific was largely under Allied control. By February, the Allies were also making progress in the central Pacific. Naval and air strikes reduced most of the Japanese bases throughout the area, and after several intense, bloody campaigns, most of the central Pacific was secure. As the islands in the Marshall and Mariana chains fell to US Army and Marines forces by that summer, troops constructed airfields in preparation for air strikes on Japan itself. The Marianas were a particularly valuable asset since they were close enough to Japan for the United States' new, technologically advanced B-29 bombers to reach the mainland.
As the United States geared up for this aerial bombardment of Japan, military leaders lobbied to continue their campaigns in the southwest and central Pacific. In the southwest, General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz pushed for an assault on the Philippines, while in the central Pacific, Admiral Ernest J. King pressed for an attack on Formosa (now Taiwan).

The Attack On Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

The National WWII Museum will commemorate the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor with 80 days of articles, oral histories, artifacts, and more.

LEARN MORE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pacific Strategy, 1941-1944 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On December 7, 1941, Japan staged a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, severely damaging the US Pacific Fleet. When Germany and Italy declared war on the United States days later, America found itself in a global war.

# data[].attributes.body
D-Day is the start of the take back of Europe by the allies. They stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. Many allies were killed.
D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)
D-DAY: THE TAKING OF OMAHA BEACH | Biggest Battles of WWII | History - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In May 1944, the Western Allies were finally prepared to deliver their greatest blow of the war, the long-delayed, cross-channel invasion of northern France, code-named Overlord.

# data[].attributes.body
A meeting between the Allied leaders Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in February 1945 at Yalta, a Crimean port on the Black Sea. The leaders planned the final stages of World War II and agreed on the subsequent territorial division of Europe.

The Yalta Conference - World War II History - YouTube
Yalta Conference: Definition, Date & Outcome - HISTORY - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tehran Conference

Prior to the Yalta Conference, the three leaders met in November 1943 in Tehran, Iran, where they coordinated the next phase of war against the Axis Powers in Europe and the Pacific.

At the Tehran Conference, the United States and Britain had committed to launching an invasion of northern France in mid-1944, opening another front of the war against Nazi Germany. Stalin, meanwhile, had agreed in principle to join the war against Japan in the Pacific after Germany was defeated.

By February 1945, as Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered again at Yalta, an Allied victory in Europe was on the horizon. Having liberated France and Belgium from Nazi occupation, the Allies now threatened the German border; to the east, Soviet Union troops had driven back the Germans in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and gotten within 40 miles of Berlin.

This put Stalin at a distinct advantage during the meeting at the Black Sea resort, a location he himself had proposed after insisting his doctors had barred him from traveling long distances.

Pacific War

While the war in Europe was winding down, Roosevelt knew the United States still faced a protracted struggle against Japan in the Pacific War, and wanted to confirm Soviet support in an effort to limit the length of and casualties sustained in that conflict. At Yalta, Stalin agreed that Soviet forces would join the Allies in the war against Japan within "two or three months" after Germany's surrender.

In return for its support in the Pacific War, the other Allies agreed, the Soviet Union would gain control of Japanese territory it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, including southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuril Islands.

Stalin also demanded that the United States grant diplomatic recognition of Mongolia's independence from China: the Mongolian People's Republic, founded in 1924, was a Soviet satellite.
WATCH VIDEO: FDR: The War Years
Division of Germany

At Yalta, the Big Three agreed that after Germany's unconditional surrender, it would be divided into four post-war occupation zones, controlled by U.S., British, French and Soviet military forces. The city of Berlin would also be divided into similar occupation zones.

France's leader, Charles de Gaulle, was not invited to the Yalta Conference, and Stalin agreed to include France in the post-war governing of Germany only if France's zone of occupation was taken from the US and British zones.

The Allied leaders also determined that Germany should be completely demilitarized and "denazified," and that it would assume some responsibility for post-war reparations, but not sole responsibility.

Poland and Eastern Europe

Stalin took a hard line on the question of Poland, pointing out that within three decades, Germany had twice used the nation as a corridor through which to invade Russia. He declared that the Soviet Union would not return the territory in Poland that it had annexed in 1939, and would not meet the demands of the Polish government-in-exile based in London.

Stalin did agree to allow representatives from other Polish political parties into the communist-dominated provisional government installed in Poland, and to sanction free elections there-one of Churchill's key objectives.

In addition, the Soviets promised to allow free elections in all territories in Eastern Europe liberated from Nazi occupation, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

In return, the United States and Britain agreed that future governments in Eastern European nations bordering Soviet Union should be "friendly" to the Soviet regime, satisfying Stalin's desire for a zone of influence to provide a buffer against future conflicts in Europe.

United Nations

At Yalta, Stalin agreed to Soviet participation in the United Nations, the international peacekeeping organization that Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed to form in 1941 as part of the Atlantic Charter. He gave this commitment after all three leaders had agreed on a plan whereby all permanent members of the organization's Security Council would hold veto power.

Having discussed these key issues, the Big Three agreed to meet again after Germany's surrender, in order to finalize the borders of post-war Europe and other outstanding questions.

"There is no doubt that the tide of Anglo-Soviet-American friendship had reached a new high," wrote James Byrnes, who accompanied Roosevelt to Yalta, in his memoirs. Though Roosevelt and Churchill also considered the Yalta Conference an indication that their wartime cooperation with the Soviets would continue in peacetime, such optimism would prove to be short-lived.

Impact of the Yalta Conference

By March 1945, it had become clear that Stalin had no intention of keeping his promises regarding political freedom in Poland. Instead, Soviet troops helped squash any opposition to the provisional government based in Lublin, Poland. When elections were finally held in 1947, they predictably solidified Poland as one of the first Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe.

Many Americans criticized Roosevelt-who was seriously ill during the Yalta Conference and died just two months later-for the concessions he made at Yalta regarding Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia.

President Harry Truman, Roosevelt's successor, would be far more suspicious of Stalin that July, when the leaders of the Allied powers met again at the Potsdam Conference in Germany to hash out the final terms for ending World War II in Europe.

But with his troops occupying much of Germany and Eastern Europe, Stalin was able to effectively ratify the concessions he won at Yalta, pressing his advantage over Truman and Churchill (who was replaced mid-conference by Prime Minister Clement Attlee).

In March 1946, barely a year after the Yalta Conference, Churchill delivered his famous speech declaring that an " iron curtain" had fallen across Eastern Europe, signaling a definitive end to cooperation between the Soviet Union and its Western allies, and the beginning of the Cold War.
READ MORE: How the 'Big Three' Teed Up the Cold War at the 1945 Yalta Conference
Sources

The Yalta Conference 1945. Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State.
Terry Charman, "How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin Planned to End the Second World War." Imperial War Museums, January 12, 2018.
The End of World War II and the Division of Europe. Center for European Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yalta Conference: Definition, Date & Outcome - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Yalta Conference of 1945 was an historic meeting of three World War II allies: U.S. President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Churchill and Soviet Premier Stalin.

# data[].attributes.body
Near the end of WWII, Hitler knew the Allies were coming for him. He gave his wife poison and he put a gun to his head.
How did Adolf Hitler die? | Britannica
Hitler's Death | National Geographic - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As Soviet troops entered the heart of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, in his underground bunker. Although there is some speculation about the manner of his death, it is widely believed that he shot himself. Eva Braun, whom he had recently married, also took her own life. According to his wishes, both bodies were burned and buried. Almost immediately, however, conspiracy theories began. The Soviets initially claimed that they were unable to confirm Hitler's death and later spread rumors that he was alive. According to subsequent reports, however, the Soviets recovered his burnt remains, which were identified through dental records. Hitler's body was secretly buried before being exhumed and cremated, with the ashes scattered in 1970.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As Soviet troops entered the heart of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, in his underground bunker. Although there is some speculation about the manner of his death, it is widely believed that he shot himself. Eva Braun, whom he had recently married, also took her own life.

# data[].attributes.body
The Soviet Union with about 1.5 million soldiers circling the capital and taking over the capital. It was the last major European offensive of the war.
The BRUTAL Fall of Berlin - YouTube
VE Day: The fall of Nazi Berlin in pictures - BBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
VE Day: The fall of Nazi Berlin in pictures

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Berlin officially surrendered to Soviet forces on 2 May but fighting continued until the war ended.

# data[].attributes.body
Los Alamos is the laboratory in New Mexico where the atomic bombs were developed.
Los Alamos National Laboratory | laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States | Britannica
WW II : RARE COLOR FILM : LOS ALAMOS : 1ST NUCLEAR BOMB - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), also called (1943-47) Los Alamos Laboratory and (1947-81) Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the laboratory that produced the first atomic bombs used during World War II and home of the primary nuclear weapons research facility in the United States. It is located in Los Alamos, New Mexico, 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Santa Fe.

In 1942 General Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project (code name for the U.S. mission to produce an atomic bomb), sought a secure site for the bomb laboratory. The location needed to be safe from enemy attack, isolated because of the project's top secret status, and sparsely populated in the event of a nuclear accident.

Several sites in the interior western United States were considered, but it was not until J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the bomb laboratory, suggested Los Alamos that the site was chosen. It fulfilled the selection criteria, and Oppenheimer was keen to locate the bomb-production facility at Los Alamos because of its natural beauty. He had enjoyed summers in Los Alamos as a youth and believed that the beautiful location would help the weapons team endure the arduous challenge ahead.

In April 1943 the scientists and engineers began arriving at the Los Alamos Laboratory, as it was then called. At its peak in 1945 more than 5,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and their families lived on the site.

On July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project achieved its wartime mission with the detonation of a plutonium bomb at the Trinity test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The project's other two bombs were dropped on Japan the following month-a uranium bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6 and another plutonium bomb on the city of Nagasaki on August 9.

Following the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945, and the conclusion of World War II, the manufacture of atomic bombs continued at Los Alamos. However, after the radiation deaths of two scientists in two separate accidents in 1945 and 1946, the U.S. nuclear weapons program developed new safety guidelines that were rigidly enforced.

In the late 1940s and the '50s the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, as the facility was then called, remained a prime U.S. nuclear weapons design post, although it shared responsibilities in the 1950s with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. Disarmament and arms-reduction treaties in the 1970s and '90s, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War in 1991 resulted in diminished demand for nuclear weapons production. Although LANL remained the chief U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory at the turn of the 21st century, it shifted gears to become one of the largest scientific research sites in the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Los Alamos National Laboratory | laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the laboratory that produced the first atomic bombs used during World War II and home of the primary nuclear weapons research facility in the United States. It is located in Los Alamos, New Mexico, 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Santa Fe.

# data[].attributes.body
A conference that discussed how Europe will be run after the war.
Potsdam Conference | Facts, History, & Significance | Britannica
Potsdam - Stalin, Churchill, Truman (1945) - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Potsdam Conference, (July 17-August 2, 1945), Allied conference of World War II held at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. The chief participants were U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (or Clement Attlee, who became prime minister during the conference), and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.

Learn about the Potsdam Conference attended by Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin to decide the future of Germany and Europe after World War II

See all videos for this article

The conferees discussed the substance and procedures of the peace settlements in Europe but did not attempt to write peace treaties. That task was left to a Council of Foreign Ministers. The chief concerns of the Big Three, their foreign ministers, and their staffs were the immediate administration of defeated Germany, the demarcation of the boundaries of Poland, the occupation of Austria, the definition of the Soviet Union's role in eastern Europe, the determination of reparations, and the further prosecution of the war against Japan. The amity and good will that had largely characterized former wartime conferences was missing at Potsdam, for each nation was most concerned with its own self-interest, and Churchill particularly was suspicious of Stalin's motives and unyielding position.

The Potsdam Conference's Declaration on Germany stated, "It is the intention of the Allies that the German people be given the opportunity to prepare for the eventual reconstruction of their life on a democratic and peaceful basis." The four occupation zones of Germany conceived at the Yalta Conference were set up, each to be administered by the commander-in-chief of the Soviet, British, U.S., or French army of occupation. Berlin, Vienna, and Austria were also each divided into four occupation zones. An Allied Control Council made up of representatives of the four Allies was to deal with matters affecting Germany and Austria as a whole. Its policies were dictated by the "five Ds" decided upon at Yalta: demilitarization, denazification, democratization, decentralization, and deindustrialization. Each Allied power was to seize reparations from its own occupation zones, although the Soviet Union was permitted 10-15 percent of the industrial equipment in the western zones of Germany in exchange for agricultural and other natural products from its zone.

Poland's boundary became the Oder and Neisse rivers in the west, and the country received part of former East Prussia. This necessitated moving millions of Germans in those areas to Germany. The governments of Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria were already controlled by communists, and Stalin was adamant in refusing to let the Allies interfere in eastern Europe. While in Potsdam, Truman told Stalin about the United States' "new weapon" (the atomic bomb) that it intended to use against Japan. On July 26 an ultimatum was issued from the conference to Japan demanding unconditional surrender and threatening heavier air attacks otherwise. After Japan had rejected this ultimatum, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The protocols of the Potsdam Conference suggested continued harmony among the Allies, but the deeply conflicting aims of the Western democracies on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other in fact meant that Potsdam was to be the last Allied summit conference.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Michael Ray.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Potsdam Conference | Facts, History, & Significance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Potsdam Conference, (July 17-August 2, 1945), Allied conference of World War II held at Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin. The chief participants were U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (or Clement Attlee, who became prime minister during the conference), and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.

# data[].attributes.body
The city in Japan where the first atomic bomb was dropped.
The Most Fearsome Sight: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)
Hiroshima, Japan-First Atomic Bomb (With Historical Facts) - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By July 1945, Germany had surrendered, and the war in Europe was over. Japan, however, refused to submit to the terms outlined in the Allies' Potsdam Declaration. It appeared to American leaders that the only way to compel Japan's unconditional surrender was to invade and conquer the Japanese home islands. Although an estimated 300,000 Japanese civilians had already died from starvation and bombing raids, Japan's government showed no sign of capitulation. Instead, American intelligence intercepts revealed that by August 2, Japan had already deployed more than 560,000 soldiers and thousands of suicide planes and boats on the island of Kyushu to meet the expected American invasion of Japan. Additional reports correctly surmised that the Japanese military intended to execute all American prisoners in Japan in the event of an Allied landing. These frightening figures portended a costlier battle for the United States than any previously fought during the war. By comparison, US forces suffered 49,000 casualties, including 12,000 men killed in action, when facing less than 120,000 Japanese soldiers during the battle for the island of Okinawa from April to June of 1945. At least 110,000 Japanese soldiers and more than 100,000 Okinawan civilians, a third of the island's prewar population, also perished in the campaign. American casualties on Okinawa weighed heavily on the minds of American planners who looked ahead to the invasion of Japan. Japan's leaders hoped to prevail, not by defeating American forces, but by inflicting massive casualties and thereby breaking the resolve of the American public.

This was the situation that confronted American President Harry S. Truman in the summer of 1945 when he authorized the use of the world's first atomic bomb. In light of intelligence reports about Japan's commitment to continue fighting, Truman and his military advisors were determined to use every weapon at their disposal in order to bring the war to an immediate end. Consequently, neither Truman nor any of his advisors ever debated if the atomic bombs should be used, only how and where they should be used. In the spring of 1945, the American government convened a committee of scientists and military officers to determine how best to use the bombs. This group unanimously declared that there was no guarantee that demonstrating the bombs to the Japanese in a deserted area would convince Japanese leaders to surrender. It was vital that Japan be convinced to surrender as fast as possible because the United States had just two atomic bombs available in July 1945 and additional weapons would not be ready to deploy for several more weeks. Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese, American, and Japanese soldiers continued to die each day the war continued.

Consequently, Truman approved the long-standing plans for the US Army Air Force to drop atomic bombs on a list of preselected Japanese cities. The list of targets excluded Tokyo and Kyoto because of their political and historic importance. Instead, the intended target of the first bomb was Hiroshima, a fan-shaped city of approximately 550,000 people that occupied the estuary of the Ota River. The city was also home to the headquarters of the Japanese army that defended the island of Kyushu as well as a number of war industries.

At 2:45 a.m. on Monday August 6, 1945, three American B-29 bombers of the 509th Composite Group took off from an airfield on the Pacific island of Tinian, 1,500 miles south of Japan. Colonel Paul Tibbets piloted the lead bomber, "Enola Gay," which carried a nuclear bomb nicknamed "Little Boy." Despite the bomb's moniker, it weighed nearly 10,000 pounds. As a result, the overloaded Enola Gay used more than two miles of runway to get aloft. At 7:15 a.m., the bomber crew armed the bomb, and the plane began its ascent to the bombing altitude of 31,000 feet.

Meanwhile, in Hiroshima, Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto awoke at 5 a.m. Hiroshima time, which was an hour behind Tinian time. Tanimoto was the pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, and "a small man, quick to talk, laugh, and cry." Tanimoto was a thoughtful and cautious man who had sent his wife and baby to the relative safety of a northern suburb. Tanimoto remained in the city to remove the transportable objects in his church to the safety of a suburban estate. He had slept poorly because of several air raid warnings the previous night. Hiroshima had not yet endured an American bombing raid, but its good fortune was not expected to last. That morning, Tanimoto had agreed to help a friend move a large armoire filled with clothes out to the suburbs. As the two men trundled the piece of furniture through the streets, they heard an air raid siren go off. The alarm sounded every morning when American weather planes flew overhead, so the men were not particularly worried. They continued on with their handcart through the city streets. When the pair reached their destination, "there was no sound of planes. The morning was still; the place was cool and pleasant."

At 8:14 a.m. Hiroshima time, the Enola Gay arrived over the city. The Aioi Bridge, which bombardier Thomas Ferebee used as an aiming point, was clearly visible through the plane's bombsight. Ferebee took control of the bomber and opened the bomb bay doors. Just after 8:15 a.m., Ferebee released Little Boy from its restraints and the bomb fell away from the Enola Gay. The plane jumped nearly 10 feet at the sudden loss in weight. Tibbets immediately resumed control of the plane and banked it sharply on a 155 degree turn. He had practiced this difficult maneuver for months because he had been instructed that he had less than 45 seconds to get his plane clear of the subsequent explosion. Not even the scientists who designed the bomb were sure if the Enola Gay would survive the shock waves from the blast.

Little Boy fell almost six miles in 43 seconds before detonating at an altitude of 2,000 feet. The bomb exploded with the force of more than 15,000 tons of TNT directly over a surgical clinic, 500 feet from the Aioi Bridge. Less than two percent of the bomb's uranium achieved fission, but the resulting reaction engulfed the city in a blinding flash of heat and light. The temperature at ground level reached 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a second. The bomb vaporized people half a mile away from ground zero. Bronze statues melted, roof tiles fused together, and the exposed skin of people miles away burned from the intense infrared energy unleashed. At least 80,000 people died instantly.

Reverend Tanimoto saw "a tremendous flash of light cut across the sky... from east to west, from the city toward the hills. It seemed a sheet of sun." Because Tanimoto was two miles from the epicenter of the explosion, he had a few seconds to throw himself between two large rocks in the garden of his friend's house. "He felt a sudden pressure, and then splinters and pieces of board and fragments of tile fell on him." The house had collapsed, along with the concrete wall surrounding the garden. The day grew darker and darker under a massive dust cloud.

From the Enola Gay, Tibbets and his crew saw "a giant purple mushroom" that "had already risen to a height of 45,000 feet, three miles above our altitude, and was still boiling upward like something terribly alive." Though the plane was already miles away, the cloud looked like it would engulf the bomber that had spawned it. "Even more fearsome," to Tibbets, "was the sight on the ground below. At the base of the cloud, fires were springing up everywhere amid a turbulent mass of smoke that had the appearance of bubbling hot tar... The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire."

In the minutes, hours, and days that followed the bombing, survivors in Hiroshima tried desperately to locate loved ones and care for the thousands of wounded. Some people exhibited horrible burns, while others who outwardly appeared unscathed later died painful deaths from radiation poisoning. Thousands of people were buried in the debris of their homes. Most structures in the city had been constructed of wood with tile roofs. All but a handful of concrete structures in the city center had been completely leveled.

President Harry Truman was aboard the cruiser USS Augusta on his way back from the Potsdam Conference when he learned of the bomb's successful detonation. He immediately shared the news with his advisors and the ship's crew. As the information was broadcast around the world, Allied soldiers around the globe felt as though they had received a reprieve from a death sentence. The end of World War II finally appeared to be in sight.

This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by Bank of America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Most Fearsome Sight: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

# data[].attributes.body
The United States government put Japanese Americans in internment camps, because they were afraid they were Japanese spies and could not be trusted.
Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions - HISTORY
Life In A US Japanese American Internment Camp | Oregon Experience - YouTube

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt's executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center, tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration.

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment.

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Sources

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, be incarcerated.