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It's been 70 years since the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, "the day that will live in infamy," in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt,

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WWII

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Printable Version No war in history killed more people or destroyed more property than World War II. Seventeen million combatants--and an unknown number of civilians--lost their lives in the conflict. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war; of these, some 7.5 million Soviet troops died in World War II, along with 3.5 million Germans, 1.25 million Japanese, and 400,000 Americans. Civilian deaths were even higher. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.

More than any previous war in history, World War II was a total war. Some 70 nations took part in the war, and fighting took place on the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in the seas surrounding Australia. Entire societies participated in the war either as soldiers and war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation, bombing, and mass murder. In the United States the war had vast repercussions: it ended depression joblessness, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. In addition, World War II marked the beginning of the nuclear age.

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Printable Version No war in history killed more people or destroyed more property than World War II. Seventeen million combatants--and an unknown number of civilians--lost their lives in the conflict. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war; of these, some 7.5 million Soviet troops died in World War II, along with 3.5 million Germans, 1.25 million Japanese, and 400,000 Americans.

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Mobilizing for War

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Printable Version World War II cost America 1 million casualties and over 300,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It had an immediate impact on the economy by ending Depression-era unemployment. The war accelerated corporate mergers and the trend toward large-scale agriculture. Labor unions also grew during the war as the government adopted pro-union policies, continuing the New Deal's sympathetic treatment of organized labor.

Presidential power expanded enormously during World War II, anticipating the rise of what postwar critics termed the "imperial presidency." The Democrats reaped a political windfall from the war. Roosevelt rode the wartime emergency to unprecedented third and fourth terms.

For most Americans, the war had a disruptive influence--separating families, overcrowding housing, and creating a shortage of consumer goods. The war accelerated the movement from the countryside to the cities. It also challenged gender and racial roles, opening new opportunities for women and many minority groups.

The Allies prevailed in World War II because of the United States' astounding productive capacity. During the Depression year of 1937, Americans produced 4.8 million cars, while the Germans produced 331,000 and the Japanese 26,000. By 1945, the United States was turning out 88,410 tanks to Germany's 44,857; the U.S. manufactured 299,293 aircraft to Japan's 69,910. The American ratio of toilet paper was 22.5 sheets per man per day, compared with the British ration of 3 sheets. In Germany, civilian consumption fell by 20 percent; in Japan by 26 percent; in Britain by 12 percent. But in the United States, personal consumption rose by more than 12 percent.

During World War II, the federal government took an even larger economic role than it did during the World War I. To gain the support of business leaders, the federal government suspended competitive bidding, offered cost-plus contracts, guaranteed low-cost loans for retooling, and paid huge subsidies for plant construction and equipment. Lured by huge profits, the American auto industry made the switch to military production. In 1940, some 6,000 planes rolled off Detroit's assembly lines; production of planes jumped to 47,000 in 1942; and by the end of the war, it exceeded 100,000.

To encourage agricultural production, the Roosevelt administration set crop prices at high levels. Cash income for farmers jumped from $2.3 billion in 1940 to $9.5 billion in 1945. Meanwhile, many small farmers, saddled with huge debts from the depression, abandoned their farms for jobs in defense plants or the armed services. Over 5 million farm residents left rural areas during the war.

Overall, the war brought unprecedented prosperity to Americans. Per capita income rose from $373 in 1940 to $1,074 in 1945. Workers never had it so good. Rising incomes, however, created shortages of goods and high inflation. Prices soared 18 percent between 1941 and the end of 1942. Apples sold for 10 cents apiece; the price of a watermelon soared to $2.50; and oranges reached an astonishing $1.00 a dozen.

Many goods were unavailable regardless of price. To conserve steel, glass, and rubber for war industries, the government halted production of cars in December 1941. A month later, production of vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, radios, sewing machines, and phonographs ceased. Altogether, production of nearly 300 items deemed nonessential to the war effort was banned or curtailed, including coat hangers, beer cans, and toothpaste tubes.

Congress responded to surging prices by establishing the Office of Price Administration (OPA) in January 1942, with the power to freeze prices and wages, control rents, and institute rationing of scarce items. The OPA quickly rationed food stuffs. Every month each man, woman, and child in the country received two ration books--one for canned goods and one for meat, fish and dairy products. Meat was limited to 28 ounces per person a week; sugar to 8-12 ounces; and coffee, a pound every five weeks. Rationing was soon extended to tires, gasoline, and shoes. Drivers were allowed a mere 3 gallons a week; pedestrians were limited to two pairs of shoes a year. The OPA extolled the virtues of self-sacrifice, telling people to "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

In addition to rationing, Washington attacked inflation by reducing the public's purchasing power. In 1942, the federal government levied a 5 percent withholding tax on anyone who earned more than $642 a year.

The war created 17 million new jobs at the exact moment when 15 million men and women entered the armed services--unemployment virtually disappeared. Union membership jumped from 10.5 million to 14.75 million during the war.

Election of 1944

During the 1944 presidential campaign, President Roosevelt unveiled plans for a "GI Bill of Rights," promising educational support, medical care, and housing loans for veterans, which Congress approved overwhelmingly in 1944. Unwilling to switch leaders while at war, the public stuck with Roosevelt to see the crisis through. The president easily defeated his Republican opponent, Governor Thomas Dewey of New York, receiving 432 electoral votes to Dewey's 99 votes.

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Printable Version World War II cost America 1 million casualties and over 300,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It had an immediate impact on the economy by ending Depression-era unemployment. The war accelerated corporate mergers and the trend toward large-scale agriculture.

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Rationing Means a Fair Share For All of Us

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Overview: During World War II, the propaganda campaign on the American front was created by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays. It was used to promote the war and inspire American citizens to help the cause in any way they could. Propaganda was not only used by Americans, but by all sides of the war: the British, the Germans, and the Japanese all used it to influence their citizens. Each country would portray the enemy as gruesome & cruel-they might also use scare tactics to teach their citizens to hate & fear the enemy. Propaganda was used to help as much as it was used to harm, and both ways it was extremely effective. (WWII, p. 1)

The dictionary definition of "propaganda" is: information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. (Dictionary, p. 1)

A Brief History: American propaganda really began during World War I, but quickly grew from there. It became so effective that the same tactics used by Lippman and Bernays continued through the next World War. During WWII the terms "group mind" and "engineering consent" were coined, and anti-German hysteria spread. Propaganda soon took control of the public opinion, and businesses were as much affected by it as the every day citizen was. (WWII, p. 2)

"To meet the government's objectives the OWI (Office of War Information) used common propaganda tools (posters, radio, movies, etc.) and specific types of propaganda. The most common types used were fear, the bandwagon, name-calling, euphemism, glittering generalities, transfer, and the testimonial.

During WWII the objectives of the U.S. government for the propaganda campaign were recruitment, financing the war effort, unifying the public behind the war effort and eliminating dissent of all kinds, resource conservation, and factory production of war materials. The most common themes found in the posters were the consequences of careless talk, conservation, civil defense, war bonds, victory gardens, "women power", and anti-German and Japanese scenarios. It was imperative to have the American people behind the war effort. Victory over the Axis was not a given, and certainly would not be without the whole-hearted support of all men, women, and children." (National WWII Museum)

The main style of all propaganda was an exaggerated idea to either seem relatable or inhuman. In artwork, a lot of the words rhyme and have a strong catchphrase that accents the picture on the poster. For pro-Americans, the posters were quite relatable & seemed like a worthy sacrifice. The posters that were anti-Japanese or anti-German portrayed caricatures that were inhuman, monstrous, and evil-sometimes the caricature would be attacking or scaring an ideal-looking American citizen.

Themes: Some themes of propaganda include supporting the war, pro-American, anti-Nazi/Japanese, protect soldiers, citizens can make a difference, encouraging opponents to give up, etc. Propaganda soon became known as the "Psych-War."

"Propaganda aimed at enemy soldiers was designed to convince them that they should either disengage philosophically from the war aims of their leaders, or that they should surrender because their military position was not viable. An early post-World War II analysis of the success of surrender leaflets included an account from Italy: "After we invaded Italy honest Italian parents told us that the best going-away gift they could give their warbound sons was an Allied surrender pass purchased for one hundred lire on the black market. It was a lifesaving insurance premium"16 while a contemporary paper by Lt. Colonel William R. Kintner described the impact of the "I cease resistance" leaflets, dropped on Japanese soldiers in the last stages of the Pacific war:

On Biak one division reported that 75 percent of the prisoners-of-war taken appeared to have been influenced by leaflets in making up their minds to surrender. Cease resistance leaflets made their strongest appeal when the enemy was disorganized and short of food and ammunition. Many reports indicate that at least 50 percent of the Japanese were contacted by our leaflets, and that almost all surrenders were assisted, if not initiated, by ideas implanted by our leaflets." (Finch, p. 17)

Associates of Propaganda: There were not only writers associated with the propaganda in WWII but also artists, scientists, movie directors, journalists, etc. that were hired specifically to help promote the U.S. war effort. The O.W.I. or Office of War Information was in charge of hiring & promoting propaganda efforts.

"Hollywood screenwriter Robert Riskin was the head of the Overseas Branch of the Office of War Information during WWII. His role not only helped to shape the administrative and managerial strategy of the agency but also created a body of documentary film work that was arguably the most incisive of the entire war." (Scott, p. 1)

"While most propaganda aimed to boost patriotism, some took on racist overtones. Director Frank Capra produced seven films called Why We Fight, which portrayed Germany, Italy and Japan as nations of inhuman murderers. As World War II progressed, the O.W.I. had a hand in Hollywood, which churned out patriotic films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) with James Cagney, Pin-Up Girl (1944) with Betty Grable as a USO entertainer, and Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly as a dancing sailor. Even cartoon characters got into the act. Warner Brothers sent Popeye and Bugs Bunny to fight the Japanese, while Disney released a short showing Donald Duck incapacitating Hitler with a ripe tomato. The war, movies and cartoons did their part to keep Americans focused on the war effort, even as they were being entertained. The Allied forces fought long and hard against the Nazis in the air and on the ground, but also with the powerful tool of propaganda." (WWII Propaganda, p. 3)

Quotations: "The principal battleground of the war is not the South Pacific. It is not the Middle East. It is not England, or Norway, or the Russian Steppes. It is American opinion." -Archibald MacLeish, Director of the Office of Facts and Figures, forerunner of the Office of War Administration

"The function of the war poster is to make coherent and acceptable a basically incoherent and irrational ordeal of killing, suffering, and destruction that violate every accepted principle of morality and decent living." -O.W. Riegal, propaganda analyst for the Office of War Information

Some examples of propaganda quotes in posters:

The Reception of Propaganda: "Persuading the American public became a wartime industry, almost as important as the manufacturing of bullets and planes. The Government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign with clearly articulated goals and strategies to galvanize public support, and it recruited some of the nation's foremost intellectuals, artists, and filmmakers to wage the war on that front." (Powers of Persuasion, p. 1) Propaganda was not a term the public liked; however it was soon titled the "psychological war". The business itself was extremely important, and was promoted more than anything else at that time. The OWI made sure to hire people of all backgrounds to help design the propaganda that was sent out to the American people. The result was a success: American people went into anti-German/Japanese hysteria, and fervently acted to promote the war. Victory gardens were created, movies supporting the war were made, and radio shows of all kinds helped to rally the citizens together. The citizens felt it was their job to do their share to support the war. Many men were recruited to join the military, and many women took up factory jobs to help keep the economy going and make war supplies for the troops. The use of propaganda caught on like wildfire, not only in America, but also in the other countries involved in the war. To this day, propaganda is still an important and flourishing business.

Further Reading: WWII: http://www.world-war-2.info

The National WWII Museum: http://www.nationalww2museum.org/index.html

Propaganda Broadcasters: http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/6-world-war-ii-propaganda-broadcasters

WWII Propaganda through the Radio: http://search.proquest.com.library.icc.edu/docview/214058429/7C88BCA10E544268PQ/13?accountid=11577

WWII Propaganda Leaflets: http://search.proquest.com.library.icc.edu/docview/219749760/7C88BCA10E544268PQ/17?accountid=11577

Works Cited

Finch, Lynette. "Psychological Propaganda: The War of Ideas During the First Half of the Twentieth Century." ProQuest. 2000. Web. 29 June 2015.

"Powers of Persuasion." Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from WWII. The National Archives. Web. 29 June 2015.

"Propaganda Posters at a Glance". National WWII Museum. Web. 29 June 2015.

"Propaganda." Dictionary.com. Web. 29 June 2015.

Scott, Ian. "From Toscanini to Tennessee: Robert Risking, the OWI, and the Construction of American Propaganda in WWII." ProQuest. 2006. Web. 29 June 2015.

"The Man Behind Hitler: World War II Propaganda." The American Experience. 2006. Web. 29 June 2015.

"World War 2 Propaganda." World War II. 2015. Web. 29 June 2015.

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Overview: During World War II, the propaganda campaign on the American front was created by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays. It was used to promote the war and inspire American citizens to help the cause in any way they could.

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Molding Public Opinion

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Molding Public Opinion Previous Next

Digital History ID 3492

President Roosevelt hoped to avoid the crude propaganda campaigns that had stirred ethnic hatred during World War I. Nevertheless, anti-Japanese propaganda was intense. Movies, comic strips, newspapers, books, and advertisements caricatured Japanese by portraying them with thick glasses and huge buck teeth.
Motion pictures emerged as the most important instrument of propaganda during World War II. After Pearl Harbor, Hollywood quickly enlisted in the war cause. The studios quickly copyrighted movie titles like Yellow Peril and V for Victory. Hollywood's greatest contribution to the war effort was morale. Combat films produced during the war emphasized patriotism, group effort, and the value of sacrifice for a larger cause. The films portrayed World War II as a peoples' war, typically featuring a group of men from diverse ethnic backgrounds thrown together, tested on the battlefield, and molded into a dedicated fighting unit. Wartime films also featured women serving as combat nurses, riveters, welders, and long-suffering mothers who kept the home fires burning.

Off-screen, leading actors and actresses led recruitment and bond drives and entertained the troops. Leading directors like Frank Capra and John Huston made documentaries to explain "why we fight" and to show civilians what actual combat looked like.

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Printable Version Molding Public Opinion Previous Next Digital History ID 3492 President Roosevelt hoped to avoid the crude propaganda campaigns that had stirred ethnic hatred during World War I. Nevertheless, anti-Japanese propaganda was intense. Movies, comic strips, newspapers, books, and advertisements caricatured Japanese by portraying them with thick glasses and huge buck teeth.

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http://bit.ly/2il8Dbm Are you looking for an engaging lesson that checks for students comprehension on the course of World War II in the Pacific? Would you like to create an opportunity for your classes to step into the footsteps of real Americans who fought in the Pacific during World War II and experience what they experienced?

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Nearly everyone who's seen it and lived to tell the tale describes it the same way: a horrifying, otherworldly thing of ghastly beauty that has haunted their life ever since.

"The colors were beautiful," remembers a man in Morgan Knibbe's short documentary The Atomic Soldiers. "I hate to say that."

"It was completely daylight at midnight-brighter than the brightest day you ever saw," says another.

Many tales of the atomic bomb, however, weren't told at all. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an estimated 400,000 American soldiers and sailors also observed nuclear explosions-many just a mile or two from ground zero. From 1946 to 1992, the U.S. government conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, during which unwitting troops were exposed to vast amounts of ionizing radiation. For protection, they wore utility jackets, helmets, and gas masks. They were told to cover their face with their arms.

After the tests, the soldiers, many of whom were traumatized, were sworn to an oath of secrecy. Breaking it even to talk among themselves was considered treason, punishable by a $10,000 fine and 10 or more years in prison.

In Knibbe's film, some of these atomic veterans break the forced silence to tell their story for the very first time. They describe how the blast knocked them to the ground; how they could see the bones and blood vessels in their hands, like viewing an X-ray. They recount the terror in their officers' faces and the tears and panic that followed the blasts. They talk about how they've been haunted-by nightmares, PTSD, and various health afflictions, including cancer. Knibbe's spare filmmaking approach foregrounds details and emotion. There's no need for archival footage; the story is writ large in the faces of the veterans, who struggle to find the right words to express the horror of what they saw during the tests and what they struggled with in the decades after.

Knibbe told me that he has long been fascinated with the self-destructive tendencies of mankind. When he found declassified U.S. civil-defense footage of soldiers maneuvering in the glare of the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb, he was "absolutely amazed and wanted to learn more about their stories." His efforts to dig deeper were curtailed by the fact that most of the information about the nuclear tests was classified-including reports on the illnesses the veterans suffered and the radioactive pollution that was released into the environment around the test sites. "I was baffled by the lack of recorded testimonies available," he said.

Knibbe began trying to contact veterans through the National Association of Atomic Veterans, eventually traveling across the United States to meet them and hear their stories. He was stunned and saddened by what he learned. "They were confronted by such an incredible destructive power that they were immediately shocked into an existential crisis," Knibbe said. "It was like they saw the creation of the universe. They were confronted with an enemy they could never defeat. It was something really difficult for them to describe."

What appalled Knibbe the most was how the U.S. government failed the veterans. "Until this day, a lot of what has happened-and the radiation-related diseases the veterans have contracted and passed on to the generations after them-is still being covered up," Knibbe said. "The veterans are consistently denied compensation."

"For 10 years now, I've been trying to get compensation, but the government does not want to admit that anybody was harmed by any radiation," says one man in the film. Knibbe said he has spoken with more than 100 U.S. atomic veterans, all of whom share similar stories of the government's intransigence. One of the few studies conducted on atomic veterans found that the 3,000 participants in a 1957 nuclear test suffered from leukemia at more than twice the rate of their peers.

Bill Clinton relieved the veterans' oath of secrecy in 1994, but the announcement was eclipsed by news from the O. J. Simpson trial. "Most of the atomic veterans didn't even know the oath of secrecy was lifted," Knibbe said. Most went on to believe that they were not allowed to talk about their experiences, even to seek help for their health problems. Many took the secret to their grave.

"It haunts me to think of what I had witnessed," says a man in the film, "and not realized at the time the import of what we were doing ... serving as guinea pigs."

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Atomic Veterans Were Silenced for 50 Years. Now, They're Talking.

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Nearly everyone who's seen it and lived to tell the tale describes it the same way: a horrifying, otherworldly thing of ghastly beauty that has haunted their life ever since. "The colors were beautiful," remembers a man in Morgan Knibbe's short documentary The Atomic Soldiers. "I hate to say that."

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You Will Love History

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Jocz Productions

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From You Will Love History

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You Will Love History

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Pearl Harbor

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Printable Version At 7:02 a.m., December 7, 1941, an army mobile radar unit set up on Oahu Island in Hawaii picked up the tell-tale blips of approaching aircraft. The two privates operating the radar contacted the Army's General Information Center, but the duty officer there told them to remain calm; the planes were probably American B-17s flying in from California. In fact, they were Japanese aircraft that had been launched from six aircraft carriers 200 miles north of Hawaii.

At 7:55 a.m., the first Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the main base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Moored in the harbor were more than 70 warships, including eight of the fleet's nine battleships. There were also 2 heavy cruisers, 29 destroyers, and 5 submarines. Four hundred airplanes were stationed nearby.

Japanese torpedo bombers, flying just 50 feet above the water, launched torpedoes at the docked American warships. Japanese dive bombers strafed the ships' decks with machine gun fire, while Japanese fighters dropped high explosive bombs on the aircraft sitting on the ground. Within half an hour, the U.S. Pacific Fleet was virtually destroyed. The U.S. battleship Arizona was a burning hulk. Three other large ships--the Oklahoma, the West Virginia, and the California--were sinking.

A second attack took place at 9 a.m., but the damage had been done. Seven of the eight battleships were sunk or severely damaged. Out of the 400 aircraft, 188 had been destroyed and 159 were severely damaged. The worst damage occurred to the Arizona; a thousand of the ship's sailors drowned or burned to death. Altogether, 2,403 Americans died during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; another 1,178 were wounded. Japan lost just 55 men.

It was not a total disaster, however. Japan had failed to destroy Pearl Harbor's ship repair facilities, the base's power plant, or its fuel tanks. Even more important, three U.S. aircraft carriers, which had been on routine maneuvers, escaped destruction. But it had been a devastating blow nonetheless. Later in the day on December 7, Japanese forces launched attacks throughout the Pacific, striking Guam, Hong Kong, Malaya, Midway Island, the Philippine Islands, and Wake Island.

The next day, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war. He began his address with these famous words: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date that will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." Congress declared war on Japan with but one dissenting vote.

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Printable Version At 7:02 a.m., December 7, 1941, an army mobile radar unit set up on Oahu Island in Hawaii picked up the tell-tale blips of approaching aircraft. The two privates operating the radar contacted the Army's General Information Center, but the duty officer there told them to remain calm; the planes were probably American B-17s flying in from California.

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From Don't Know Much About History

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What was Lend-Lease  from Don't Know Much ABout History

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What did FDR know about a Japanese attack, and when did he know it?

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What did FDR know about a Japanese attack, and when did he know it?

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From Don't Know Much About History

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What did FDR know about a Japanese attack from Don't Know Much ABout History

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You Will Love History

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Did the US Have to Drop Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

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Did the US Have to Drop Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

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From Don't Know Much About History

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Did the US Have to Drop Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki  from Don't Know Much About History

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Even trivial changes to a trivial board game can shift the course of history.

One of the charms of Monopoly is its insistent iconography: the quaint little board, with its quaint little properties and its quaint little playing pieces, all overseen by the quaint little mascot that is Rich Uncle Pennybags. To play Monopoly -- even if you're playing one of those newfangled versions -- is in some sense to step back in time: specifically, to the America of 1934, when the game was first mass-marketed.

Today brings news, however, that the board game will be making some changes to some of its most recognizable anachronisms: the iconic playing pieces. One of the cast-metal widgets that track players' moves across the board -- the Scottie dog, the race horse, the hat, the wheelbarrow, the shoe, the battleship, the thimble -- will soon be replaced. And it will be replaced, per Hasbro, by one of these candidates: a cat, a diamond ring, a guitar, a helicopter, or a mustachioed robot. (If we ever end up playing a future version of Monopoly together, by the way: Dibs on the robot.) [ Editor's note: Request denied.]

While this seems a minor change as far as the game itself is concerned -- thimble? guitar? what's the difference? -- it's worth remembering that even the smallest changes in the even the smallest amusements can, over the capricious course of history, have significant consequences.

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How Monopoly Games Helped Allied POWs Escape During World War II

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Even trivial changes to a trivial board game can shift the course of history. One of the charms of Monopoly is its insistent iconography: the quaint little board, with its quaint little properties and its quaint little playing pieces, all overseen by the quaint little mascot that is Rich Uncle Pennybags.

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Hiroshima's shadow: 70 years of the atomic bomb

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The attacks, which killed more than 100,000 instantly, ushered in two competing races - one to amass stockpiles of nuclear warheads, the other to prevent their proliferation

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Enola Gay Atomic Bomb route of Hiroshima from Google Earth

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You Will Love History link

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http://bit.ly/2xOFA25 Are you looking for an engaging lesson that checks for students comprehension on the course of World War II in North Africa and Italy? Would you like to create an opportunity for your classes to step into the footsteps of real Americans who fought in Europe during World War II and their loved ones at home and experience what they experienced?

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http://bit.ly/2zmXbiE Creating an innovative and engaging lesson can be difficult and time consuming, especially on the D-Day invasion and the end of the war in Europe. This bundle is the complete collection of tools you need to teach the course of events that led to Allied victory in Europe in 1945!

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You Will Love History

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Objective 6.5 -- The Day of Infamy (The Attack on Pearl Harbor)

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The War at Home | Ken Burns & Lynn Novick: The War | PBS LearningMedia

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View images from towns across the United States taken during World War II. As the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, the social and economic makeup of the country was about to change. Industries would need to meet the ambitious goals of the war effort.

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American Shipyards and the War Effort at Home | Ken Burns & Lynn Novick: The War | PBS LearningMedia

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View images of the American workforce taken during World War II. After the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered into World War II, declaring war on Japan and Germany. War changed the social and economic makeup of the country, as a vast industry needed to rise to meet the needs of military efforts.

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Swing

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The Century Video

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The Century: America's Time - 1941-1945: Homefront

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Brief lecture on the impact of World War II on the Home Front. Rationing Office of Price Administration Propaganda War Labor Relations Board Victory Gardens Consumers End of Great Depression Black Market Inflation

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Video Notes from You Will Love History

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WWII's Impact on Women and African Americans

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WWII's Impact on Women and African Americans

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Jocz Productions

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Brief lecture on the impact of World War II on the Home Front. Women in the workforce Rosie the Riveter Gender discrimination Double Victory Campaign C.O.R.E. NAACP Race Riots War Industry Opportunity 2nd Great Migration

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Emory Associate Professor of African American Studies, Carol Anderson, discusses the WWII era race relation

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A new website assembles thousands of biographies and oral histories from the Manhattan Project.

I could just tell you about Leona Woods Marshall Libby.

I could tell you about how, at 23 years old, she was one of the youngest people to work on the Manhattan Project. And how she was the only woman at Hanford, the first full-scale plutonium reactor in the world, where she worked as a physicist. And how, in 1943, she wore baggy clothes to hide her pregnancy so that her bosses wouldn't force her to stop working.

I could tell you how, after the war, Leona Libby worked as a particle physicist and environmental scientist, publishing more than 200 scientific papers and several books. And how she contributed important work to the fields of chemistry, astronomy, geophysics, environmental studies, and-of course-physics.

But it's a better story when Libby tells it herself. Though she died in 1986, you can hear Libby talk about her life's work in an oral history on the Atomic Heritage Foundation's website. Her page is one of more than 10,000 biographies and counting in a new project to catalogue the half-million people who contributed, in some form or another, to the Manhattan Project.

"Those 600,000 people, that includes everybody who signed in even just for a day, like construction workers at Hanford," said Cynthia Kelly, the foundation's president. So far, the project includes 370 oral histories. Kelly calls it "a labor of love."

The historical value is clear. Even though a huge number of people contributed to the Manhattan Project, the work of the scientists involved at the time was kept top secret. The resulting atomic bombs, two of which were dropped by the United States on Japan in 1945, forever changed the course of human history. Not just because of the outcome of World War II, but because of how the threat of nuclear war has shaped global politics and culture. It's reasonable to expect that historians hundreds or even thousands of years from now will look back to the development of the atomic bomb as a crucial moment for our species.

The interview with Libby was conducted by the writer Stephen L. Sanger, 30 years ago, in her office at UCLA. One of the most delightful exchanges comes at the very beginning of Sanger's tape, as he gingerly asks her about what it was like to be a woman working with all men in the 1940s. Here's how it went:

Sanger: I was just curious if you had any particular, if anybody took note of the fact you were a woman, did you have any-

Libby: What do you mean? That's a dumb thing to say.

Sanger: -problems, or, I mean, were you treated differently, or not? I know you mentioned that you had a separate restroom at Hanford.

Libby: Yeah, it wasn't that fun...

Sanger: I was just curious. I mainly wanted to check that you were-

Sanger: -the only woman at Hanford.

Sanger: Except for, I suppose-

She's pretty hard on him! It's moments like these, vignettes that seem to capture bits of Libby's personality, that underscore the value of the foundation's database of Manhattan Project workers. Much of the interview continues this way. Libby is quick to laugh, but not agreeable for the sake of making her interviewer comfortable. She's witty, and she's matter of fact.

She also describes herself as unconflicted about her role in creating the most destructive weapon on the planet. As a physicist during the war, there was a "persistent and ever-present fear" that the Germans would build a nuclear bomb first. "So I have no regrets," she said. "In war time, it was a desperate time. I think we did right, and we couldn't have done differently ... When you're in a war to the death, I don't think you stand around and say, 'Is it right?'"

Not everyone felt that way, obviously. Libby's mentor, the physicist Enrico Fermi, "shouted at her for a good 20 minutes," when she challenged his reluctance to pursue a hydrogen bomb, according to an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1980. ("Later, he regretted his decision and on his deathbed told her he had been 'hypnotized' and had made a mistake," the Bulletin wrote.)

Besides, Libby told Sanger, what's the use in questioning something that's already happened? "You can't stop it. How can you stop it?" she said. "The do-gooders and the crying on shoulders, these guys have got blue-eyed optimism that is not useful."

"I don't believe in ends of anything."

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A new website assembles thousands of biographies and oral histories from the Manhattan Project. I could just tell you about Leona Woods Marshall Libby. I could tell you about how, at 23 years old, she was one of the youngest people to work on the Manhattan Project.

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1. Drag the marker to wherever you'd like to target.

Note that you can drag the target marker after you have detonated the nuke.

Created by Alex Wellerstein, 2012-2023.
For more about the nuclear past and present, follow @wellerstein on Twitter, and read Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog.

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NUKEMAP is a mapping mash-up that calculates the effects of the detonation of a nuclear bomb.

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Loyal American: Fred Korematsu | BRI's Homework Help Series

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George Takei

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Why I love a country that once betrayed me | George Takei

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video with transcript

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Here's the transcript of the above content:

Hi, i'm john green, this is crash course u.S. History, and today we're going to talk about a topic so huge to history buffs that we can only discuss a tiny, little fraction of it.

I am of course referring to paratroopering. no world war ii. World war ii is the only historical event that has, like, its own cable channel. Well I should say it used to have its own cable channel.

These days the history channel is of course devoted primarily to lumberjacks and oh my gosh is that guy really going to shoot an alligator. who knew how nostalgic we could be for documentaries about joseph stalin. mr.

Green, mr. Green. Finally we get to the good stuff: like patton, and rommel, and churchill, and eisenhower, stalingrad, gomer pyle! Oh i'm sorry to disappoint you, me from the past, but while patton and eisenhower were americans, rommel was a german (or general monty montgomery's dog).

Regardless, they were both from the green parts of not-america also no americans fought at the battle of stalingrad, although we did talk about that in crash course world history.

And gomer pyle was a television character played by jim nabors. I believe that you mean to refer to the journalist ernie pyle. intro so here at crashcourse we like to focus on causes and effects of wars rather than strategy and tactics, but given the importance that world war ii has in the american imagination, we're gonna discuss those a bit too today. we're going to defy maria von trapp and start before the very beginning, because america's ideas about foreign policy were shaped by two things: the great depression and world war i.

After the american experience of world war i, it's not surprising that americans were just a smidge gun shy about involvement in foreign affairs. Seriously stan? A gun pun? Now? No. now america actually came out of world war I stronger than ever but man did a lot of people die for not much change.

I mean I guess the treaty of versailles sort of re-made europe, but it didn't make it better. and the league of nations was a flop and generally there was a lot of disappoin ted idealism. the period of time between 1920 and the u.S.

Entry into world war ii has been called an age of isolationism, although that isn't 100% accurate. i mean, for one thing the u.S. Sponsored a series of arms reduction negotiations that resulted in the washington treaties limiting the number of battleships that a country could possess.

But of course those negotiations led to a fat lot of nothing because the idea of a nation limiting its battleships was a bigger joke even than the league of nations, which I will remind you, we invented and then did not join. another way that the u.S.

Was less-than isolationist was our pursuance of the good neighbor policy with latin america. So called because we were not a good neighbor. our idea was to be less intrusive in latin american politics, and we did remove troops from the dominican republic and haiti, which was something but "good neighbor" is a bit of an exaggeration.

I mean we continued to support repressive dictators like somoza in nicaragua and batista in cuba. You know, we'd never really been great neighbors.

However, we were isolationist in the sense that the united states was much less involved in world trade, largely because of the depression, you know that meant that there wasn't much world trade, but also because of tariff policies. but there was also something isolationist about the formal actions of congress, like after europe and asia began to become belligerent in the 1930s with japan's invasion of china, and italy's invasion of ethiopia, and the rise of fascist dictators in spain and, of course germany, congress responded by passing a series of neutrality acts which banned the sale of arms to belligerents.

Even if they were really nice, tea-drinking belligerents who we were pals with. And that points to another reason why people tend to regard this as a time of isolationist sentiment, our old friend eurocentrism. we were generally neutral in terms of foreign intervention when it came to europe. popular groups, like america first with celebrity members from charles lindbergh to e.

Cummings cautioned against involvement in foreign affairs. But they mostly meant european affairs. the u.S. Didn't officially get involved in the war until two years after hitler invaded poland but america was deeply involved in the european war before we actually sent troops. fdr really wanted to help the allies, especially the brits, who after the french surrender in 1940 were the only ones actually fighting the nazis until 1941, when there were a whole lot of russians also fighting them.

Even congress recognized that the nazis were a threat, and in 1940 it agreed to allow cash and carry arms sales to great britain. by the way, "cash and carry" is the name of a liquor store near stan's house, but anyway the sale of arms were "cash" sales meaning that they were not paid for with loans or ious and the carry part meant that the british would carry their own arms over, you know, to britain.

It's the difference between buying a pizza at a grocery store and getting it delivery, except, you know, it's not like that at all and I just want pizza.

Then, in september 1940 congress created the nation's first peacetime draft, taking the next step toward involvement. And that was a huge deal because, you know, you don't muster an army with no desire to eventually use it.

By 1941, in spite of all our neutrality, fdr had pretty clearly sided with the allies. America became the "arsenal of democracy" with the lend lease act authorizing military aid to countries that promised to pay it back somehow after the war.

We promise, we'll figure it out. so, the u.S. Essentially gave billions of dollars worth of arms and war material to britain and, after the nazis invaded in june of 1941, to the ussr as well. and the u.S.

Also froze japanese assets here and basically ended all trade between america and japan. But of course the event that pushed us fully into the war happened on december 7, 1941 when japanese pilots attacked the american naval base at pearl harbor in hawaii.

187 aircraft were destroyed, 18 naval vessels were damaged or destroyed, and more than 2000 american servicemen were killed. fdr asked congress for a declaration of war, which they granted voting 477 to 1. And the day after that, germany declared war on the united states and world war ii officially became a world war.

We almost always start the american story of world war ii in europe because, you know, hitler, so i'm going to start in the pacific, where until 1944 there were actually more american personnel deployed than in europe. things didn't start well in the pacific.

Let's go to the thoughtbubble. perhaps worse than pearl harbor was the surrender of 78,000 american and filipino troops at bataan. This was the largest surrender by american troops in history and it resulted in thousands dying on the bataan death march to prisoner of war camps where thousands more would die.

But in may of 1942 we protected australia from the japanese fleet by winning the battle of the coral sea, and then in june we won a huge victory at midway island, midway between hawaii and japan I guess, and probably named by historians.

The u.S. Strategy in the pacific has been called island hopping and it involved taking japanese controlled islands one at a time to be used as bases for bombers that could then be used against japan itself.

It was a slow process and the fighting over these jungle-y south pacific islands was fierce and extraordinarily costly. The battle at guadalcanal went from august 1942 to february 1943 and they didn't freeze like in stalingrad, but conditions weren't much better. and now let's switch to the european theater.

We call this the european war because we were fighting against europeans and it ended in europe, but the first u.S.

Troops to fight against nazis actually did so in north africa, so it's kind of a misnomer. american weaponry was pretty poor but after our initial invasion in north africa in november 1942 we got into it, and by 1943 we and the british defeated rommel in the desert and we were ready to invade europe, which should have made stalin happy because up to this point russians had been doing the bulk of the dying in the war. but stalin wasn't happy, first because he was a mean and nasty person and those kinds of people are rarely happy, and secondly, because rather than invading france and striking at germany more directly, the allies invaded sicily and italy where we fought for most of 1943 and much of 1944 until finally, on june 6th we joined some brits and canadians in invading normandy on d-day.

And that was the beginning of the end for the nazis. thanks, thoughtbubble. Oh it's time for the mystery document already? Alright. The rules here are simple.

I read the mystery document and usually i get it wrong and I get shocked. "They seemed terribly pathetic to me. They weren't warriors. They were american boys who by mere chance of fate had wound up with guns in their hands, sneaking up a death-laden street in a strange and shattered city in a faraway country in a driving rain.

They were afraid, but it was beyond their power to quit. They had no choice. They were good boys. I talked with them all afternoon as we sneaked slowly forward along the mysterious and rubbled streets, and I know they were good boys.

And even though they weren't warriors born to the kill, they won their battles. That was the point." Man, that is some good writing, stan. By famous war correspondent ernie pyle.

Pewwww. That was me being a warrior. Pew, pew. i can't even make finger guns. That's-that's how much of a not-warrior I am. I'm a worrier. i knew it was ernie pyle for two reasons.

First, he's talking about cities so it's the european theatre. Secondly, he's the best european theatre american writer in world war ii by far.

So while americans did liberate paris and were part of the final assault on germany, and also liberated a number of concentration camps, russians did most of the fighting in europe, losing at least 20 million people, and in the end it was the russians who captured berlin. although the nazis never really had a chance to win the war after they started fighting the russians and the americans entered into it, it didn't actually end until may 8th or 9th, 1945 (depending on when you got the news) and the war in the pacific continued until august.

Japan surrendered unconditionally after the united states dropped an atomic bomb on hiroshima on august 6th and on nagasaki on august 9th. We don't celebrate the end of world war ii in the united states, and I guess this is because we would have to decide whether to celebrate the end of the war in europe or in japan.

Or maybe it's just because it's difficult to celebrate the use of atomic weapons. atomic bombs were developed through the manhattan project, so called because the bombs were partly invented in chicago and then built and tested in new mexico.

Trickery. that was the sort of covert thing the u.S. Used to do really well before we developed the internet. Although we weren't that good at it since the soviets did steal our technology and build a nuclear bomb like three years later. the two atomic bombs that were eventually dropped were the most destructive weapons the world had ever seen.

The one dropped on hiroshima killed 70,000 people instantly and by the end of 1945 another 70,000 had died from radiation poisoning. the bomb that was dropped on nagasaki also killed 70,000 people. In fact, the death toll from those two bombs was greater than the number of american fatalities in the entire pacific war.

And that leads to one of the most hotly debated questions in recent history: was the use of atomic bombs justified or ethical? those arguing against their use often point out that the truman administration had good evidence that japan would surrender if they were allowed to keep their emperor on the throne.

And some also point out that the primary targets were not military, although there were 40,000 troops stationed in hiroshima. others argue that the real reason the united states dropped the bombs was to threaten the ussr, and prevent them from taking more territory in the east.

And then there's the argument that using such a destructive weapon was morally reprehensible because it was so destructive as to be qualitatively different from other weapons. for a couple centuries, our weapons had had the theoretical capability of eliminating all humans, but never before had it been so easy. but others reply that dropping the bombs helped save american lives.

Some of truman's advisers worried that invasion of japan would result in 250,000 american deaths and at least that many japanese deaths. And that's important to note because if there was one thing truly, horribly innovative about world war ii, it was bombing. sure there was radar and jets, but they weren't nearly as significant as aerial bombardment, and by the time the a-bombs dropped, the idea of precision bombing only military targets wasn't an option, in part because bombing was incredibly risky to planes and pilots. and by 1945, it was an acceptable and widespread strategy to target civilians as part of a total war.

In world war ii perhaps 40% of the estimated 50 million people killed were civilians. Compare that with world war i, where it was only 10%. We should be horrified that 140,000 people were killed in hiroshima, but we should be horrified by all the civilian attacks in world war ii.

25,000 people died in dresden, more than 100,000 died in the firebombing of tokyo in march of 1945. Thinking about truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs is important because it forces us to consider our understanding of history. part of why we say that using atomic bombs was worse than conventional bombing was because we know what came after - the cold war, the threat of nuclear annihilation.

From the present, the dawn of atomic warfare is indeed terrifying. but people living at the time were living amid a different kind of terror and they couldn't have known that there would be a nuclear arms race that threatened all of humanity. the japanese didn't look like they were going to give up and people on both sides were dying every day, so before we pass judgment, let's try to put ourselves in the shoes of both the soldiers who were fighting, who didn't have to fight on mainland japan, and the civilians who were killed by the bombs.

There's no answer to be found there, but the opportunity of studying history is the opportunity to experience empathy. now of course we're never going to know what it's like to be someone else, to have your life saved or taken by decisions made by the allied command. studying history and making genuine attempts at empathy helps us to grapple with the complexity of the world, not as we wish it were, but as we find it.

Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week. Crash course is made through the combined efforts of all of these people and it exists because of you and your support through subbable.

Com. subbable is a voluntary subscription service that allows you to support crash course directly so that we can keep this show for free, forever, for everyone. you can check our our subbable by clicking right there or there's also a link in the video info.

There are lots of great perks, but the greatest perk of all is knowing that you are making this show possible.

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World War II Part 1: Crash Course US History #35

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Here's the transcript of the above content: Hi, i'm john green, this is crash course u.S. History, and today we're going to talk about a topic so huge to history buffs that we can only discuss a tiny, little fraction of it. I am of course referring to paratroopering.

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Primary Source

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Printable Version

Account of the bombing of Hiroshima
Digital History ID 1185

Author: Michihiko Hachiya
Date:1995

Annotation: A Japanese physician offers a first-hand account of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Document: The hour was early; the morning still, warm, and beautiful. Shimmering leaves, reflecting sunlight from a cloudless sky, made a pleasant contrast with shadows in my garden as I gazed absently through wide-flung doors opening to the south.

Clad in drawers and undershirt, I was sprawled on the living room floor exhausted because I had just spent a sleepless night on duty as an air warden in my hospital.

Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me - and then another. So well does one recall little things that I remember vividly how a stone lantern in the garden became brilliantly lit and I debated whether this light was caused by a magnesium flare or sparks from a passing trolley.

Garden shadows disappeared. The view where a moment before had been so bright and sunny was now dark and hazy. Through swirling dust I could barely discern a wooden column that had supported one comer of my house. It was leaning crazily and the roof sagged dangerously.

Moving instinctively, I tried to escape, but rubble and fallen timbers barred the way. By picking my way cautiously I managed to reach the roka (an outside hallway)and stepped down into my garden. A profound weakness overcame me, so I stopped to regain my strength. To my surprise I discovered that I was completely naked How odd! Where were my drawers and undershirt?

What had happened?

All over the right side of my body I was cut and bleeding. A large splinter was protruding from a mangled wound in my thigh, and something warm trickled into my mouth. My check was torn, I discovered as I felt it gingerly, with the lower lip laid wide open. Embedded in my neck was a sizable fragment of glass which I matter-of-factly dislodged, and with the detachment of one stunned and shocked I studied it and my blood-stained hand.

Where was my wife?

Suddenly thoroughly alarmed, I began to yell for her: 'Yaeko-san! Yaeko-san! Where are you?' Blood began to spurt. Had my carotid artery been cut? Would I bleed to death? Frightened and irrational, I called out again 'It's a five-hundred-ton bomb! Yaeko-san, where are you? A five- hundred-ton bomb has fallen!'

Yaeko-san, pale and frightened, her clothes torn and blood stained, emerged from the ruins of our house holding her elbow. Seeing her, I was reassured. My own panic assuaged, I tried to reassure her.

'We'll be all right,' I exclaimed. 'Only let's get out of here as fast as we can.'

She nodded, and I motioned for her to follow me....

We started out, but after twenty or thirty steps I had to stop. My breath became short, my heart pounded, and my legs gave way under me. An overpowering thirst seized me and I begged Yaeko-san to find me some water. But there was no water to be found. After a little my strength somewhat returned and we were able to go on.

I was still naked, and although I did not feel the least bit of shame, I was disturbed to realize that modesty had deserted me. On rounding a corner we came upon a soldier standing idly in the street. He had a towel draped across his shoulder, and I asked if he would give it to me to cover my nakedness. The soldier surrendered the towel quite willingly but said not a word. A little later I lost the towel, and Yaeko-san took off her apron and tied it around my loins.

Our progress towards the hospital was interminably slow, until finally, my legs, stiff from drying blood, refused to carry me farther. The strength, even the will, to go on deserted me, so I told my wife, who was almost as badly hurt as I, to go on alone. This she objected to, but there was no choice. She had to go ahead and try to find someone to come back for me.

Yaeko-san looked into my face for a moment, and then, without saying a word, turned away and began running towards the hospital. Once, she looked back and waved and in a moment she was swallowed up in the gloom. It was quite dark now, and with my wife gone, a feeling of dreadful loneliness overcame me. I must have gone out of my head lying there in the road because the next thing I recall was discovering that the clot on my thigh had been dislodged and blood was again spurting from the wound.

I pressed my hand to the bleeding area and after a while the bleeding stopped and I felt better Could I go on?

I tried. It was all a nightmare - my wounds, the darkness, the road ahead. My movements were ever so slow; only my mind was running at top speed.

In time I came to an open space where the houses had been removed to make a fire lane. Through the dim light I could make out ahead of me the hazy outlines of the Communications Bureau's big concrete building, and beyond it the hospital. My spirits rose because I knew that now someone would find me; and if I should die, at least my body would be found. I paused to rest. Gradually things around me came into focus. There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together. A naked woman carrying a naked baby came into view. I averted my gaze. Perhaps they had been in the bath. But then I saw a naked man, and it occurred to me that, like myself, some strange thing had deprived them of their clothes. An old woman lay near me with an expression of suffering on her face; but she made no sound. Indeed, one thing was common to everyone I saw - complete silence.

All who could were moving in the direction of the hospital. I joined in the dismal parade when my strength was somewhat recovered, and at last reached the gates of the Communications Bureau.

Copyright 2021 Digital History

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Printable Version Account of the bombing of Hiroshima Digital History ID 1185 Author: Michihiko Hachiya Date:1995 Annotation: A Japanese physician offers a first-hand account of the bombing of Hiroshima. Document: The hour was early; the morning still, warm, and beautiful.

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Pearl Harbor

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By SAMIR S. PATEL

January/February 2017

The two hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, might be the most heavily documented and studied in history. There are eight official investigations, from a Naval Court of Inquiry to a Joint Congressional Committee, reams of records, and enough books, oral histories, documentaries, and feature films to fill a library. Yet there are still things that can be learned about the morning when 350 Japanese warplanes killed 2,403 Americans, wounded another 1,104, and sank or severely damaged 21 ships in a coordinated attack on military sites around Oahu, Hawaii.

A number of factors have obscured details-big and small-from that day. For example, the surprise of the attack complicated eyewitness accounts. Secrecy shrouded the active war effort on both sides. And, in the aftermath, the United States rushed to rebuild its naval power in the Pacific with the greatest maritime salvage project in history, which returned all but three of the damaged ships to service. This effort begins to explain why there are few archaeological sites directly tied to December 7.

In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed the first database of submerged cultural resources in the main Hawaiian Islands. Of 2,114 entries, just five come from the attack: two battleships in the harbor, two Japanese submarines in deep water, and a lone American seaplane. All were spared salvage-and in some cases discovery-for decades by some combination of depth, damage, and respect for the dead.

For the United States, Pearl Harbor stands alongside Yorktown, Gettysburg, Little Bighorn, and other iconic battlefields as a crucible of American identity. But it is different in both its freshness in memory and its inaccessibility, since most of the surviving remnants lie underwater, within active military installations, or both. It was 40 years before the underwater sites became the subject of archaeological inquiry. "We're gaining a much more detailed understanding of the battlefield and all of its nuances," says James Delgado, director of maritime heritage for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, who has been directly involved in several of the archaeological projects at Pearl Harbor. "Seventy-five years on, the view is far more comprehensive and three-dimensional, not just in terms of the major events, but also individual experiences."

Today there are very few survivors of the attack, and fewer each year. The sites discussed here will soon be the only primary sources about an event that changed the course of the twentieth century. They are being studied not out of historical curiosity, but to ensure their stewardship for the future.

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By SAMIR S. PATEL January/February 2017 The two hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, might be the most heavily documented and studied in history. There are eight official investigations, from a Naval Court of Inquiry to a Joint Congressional Committee, reams of records, and enough books, oral histories, documentaries, and feature films to fill a library.

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Jan 6, 1941

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A podcast from APM Reports and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 just months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes on the West Coast and sent to one of ten "relocation" camps, where they were imprisoned behind barbed wire for the length of the war. Two-thirds of them were American citizens.

Order 9066 chronicles the history of this incarceration through vivid, first-person accounts of those who lived through it. The series explores how this shocking violation of American democracy came to pass, and its legacy in the present.

Sab Shimono and Pat Suzuki, veteran actors and stage performers who were both incarcerated at the Amache camp in Colorado, narrate the episodes. The series covers the racist atmosphere of the time, the camps' makeshift living quarters and the extraordinary ways people adapted; the fierce patriotism many Japanese Americans continued to feel and the ways they were divided against each other as they were forced to answer questions of loyalty; the movement for redress that eventually led to a formal apology from the US government, and much more.
Sab Shimono Remembers 'Camp'
AUDIO MIX
Michael Osborne
Corey Schreppel
Veronica Rodriguez
Stephen Smith

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY PRODUCTION TEAM: John Gray, Jennifer Jones, Noriko Sanefuji, Valeska Hilbig.

APM REPORTS PRODUCTION TEAM: Mike Reszler, Nathan Tobey, Chris Worthington, Alex Baumhardt, Hana Maruyama, Emerald O'Brien, Shelly Langford, Andy Kruse, Mike Mulcahy, Eric Ringham.

ADDITIONAL MUSIC: Blue Dot Sessions: Turning to You, Denzel Sprak, Collingwood, Cicle Deserrat, Kalsted, Setting Pace, The Records, Toothless Slope, Lonely Stairwell, Clay Pawnshop, Ervira, Svela Tal, Drone Pine, Vulcan Street, Thread of Clouds, Arabic Tallow, Tessalit, An Accumulation, Intermezzo, Last Lights, Gullwing Sailor, Heather Transit Alias; Kai Engel: Cold War Echo; Poddington Bear: Degradation, Lens Flare, Minor Islands.

SPECIAL THANKS: Densho - The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Support for Order 9066 comes from the Terasaki Family Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and Penelope Scialla.

Digital Collections Digital Resources Museums Films, podcasts, music, books Why do we use the term incarceration?

In July 2018, Order 9066 was distributed to public radio stations nationwide and heard as a three-part series.

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Order 9066 chronicles the history of the WWII Japanese American Incarceration through vivid, first-person accounts of those who lived through it. The series explores how this shocking violation of American democracy came to pass, and its legacy in the present.

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Executive Order 9066 & Japanese Interment Podcast pt 1

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Executive Order 9066 & Japanese Interment Podcast pt 1

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Stuff You Missed in History Class

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Roughly 122,000 Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the U.S. involvement in WWII. About two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens.

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Executive Order 9066 & Japanese Internments, Part 1

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Roughly 122,000 Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the U.S. involvement in WWII. About two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens.

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Executive Order 9066 & Japanese Internment pt 2

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Executive Order 9066 & Japanese Internment pt 2

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Stuff You Missed in History Class

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The song was written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. All the day long, whether rain or shine She's a part of the assembly line She's making history, working for victory-- Rosie, brrrrrr, the riveter. Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage Sitting up there on the fuselage.

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Rosie the Riveter: The Real Women Workers in WWII

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The Atomic Bomb
Digital History ID 3829

Document:
The Atomic Bomb Interpreting Primary Sources

Nuclear bombs cannot possible remain a "secret weapon" at the exclusive disposal of this country for more than a few years. The scientific facts on which their construction is based are well known to scientists of other countries. Unless an effective internal control of nuclear explosives is instituted, a race for nuclear armaments is certain to ensue following the first revelation of our possession of nuclear weapons to the world....In the war to which an armaments race is likely to lead, the United States, with its agglomeration of population and industry in comparative few
metropolitan districts, will be at a disadvantage compared to nations whose population and industry are scattered over large areas.

We believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an early unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States were to be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, we would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching international agreement on the future control of such weapons.

Scientists' petition against use of the atomic bomb, June, 1945

I realize the tragic significance of the atomic bomb. Its production and its use were not lightly undertaken....But we knew that our enemies were on the search for it. We know now how close they were to finding it. And we know the disaster which would come to this nation...to all civilizations, if they had found it first....

Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned the pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.

President Truman defends his decision to drop the atomic bombs, August, 1945

Questions To Think About

1. What political and military factors led President Truman to order the atomic bombing of Japan?

2. What alternatives were available to him?

3. On what grounds do Truman's critics question his decision?

4. In your opinion was the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan correct?

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The Atomic Bomb Digital History ID 3829 Document: The Atomic Bomb Interpreting Primary Sources Nuclear bombs cannot possible remain a "secret weapon" at the exclusive disposal of this country for more than a few years. The scientific facts on which their construction is based are well known to scientists of other countries.

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Truman's Diary on the Atomic Bomb
Digital History ID 1186

Author: Harry S. Truman
Date:1945

Annotation: In 1945, Harry S. Truman faced one of the most difficult decisions a President has ever had to make. Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in April 1945 had made Truman President. Nazi Germany had been defeated, and now the new chief exective had to decide how best to end the war with Japan. "I have to decide Japanese strategy," he wrote in his diary, "--shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade."

Truman was told that Japan was prepared to fight to the end rather than surrender. Some officials believed that U.S. bombing raids, which had already killed hundreds of thousands of people, would defeat Japan. Others felt that the United States would have to invade Japan at the cost of tens of thousands of casualities. Then, less than two weeks after becoming President, he was informed about a secret project to develop an atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945, Truman learned that the weapon with the power of thousands of tons of TNT had been successfully tested.

The United States and Britain gave Japan an ultimatum: surrender or face total destruction. When the Japanese government failed to respond, Truman authorized the use of the bomb. When asked to give his formal approval, he wrote without hesitation: "Suggestion approved. Release when ready."

Document: We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.

Anyway we "think" we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling - to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more.

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.

He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.

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Printable Version Truman's Diary on the Atomic Bomb Digital History ID 1186 Author: Harry S. Truman Date:1945 Annotation: In 1945, Harry S. Truman faced one of the most difficult decisions a President has ever had to make. Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in April 1945 had made Truman President.

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Executive Order 9066: Ordering Internment
Digital History ID 44

Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Date:1942

Annotation: President Roosevelt authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan.

Document: Executive Order 9066 February 19, 1942

Whereas, the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises and national defense utilities as defined in Section 4, Act of April 20, 1918, 40 Stat. 533, as amended by the Act of November 30, 1940, 54 Stat. 1220. and the Act of August 21, 1941, 55 Stat. 655 (U.S.C.01 Title 50, Sec. 104):

Now therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action to be necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any persons to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.

The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order. The designation of military areas in any region or locality shall supersede designations of prohibited and restricted areas by the Attorney General under the Proclamation of December 7 and 8, 1941, and shall supercede the responsibility and authority of the Attorney General under the said Proclamations in respect of such prohibited and restricted areas.

I hereby further authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the said Military Commanders to take such other steps as he or the appropriate Military Commander may deem advisable to enforce compliance with the restrictions applicable to each military area herein above authorized to be designated, including the use of Federal troops and other Federal Agencies, with authority to accept assistance of state and local agencies.

I hereby further authorize and direct all Executive Departments, independent establishments and other Federal Agencies, to assist the Secretary of War or the said Military Commanders in carrying out this Executive Order, including the furnishing of medical aid, hospitalization, food, clothing, transportation, use of land, shelter, and other supplies, equipment, utilities, facilities and services.

This order shall not be construed as modifying or limiting in any way the authority heretofore granted under Executive Order No. 8972, dated December 12, 1941, nor shall it be construed as limiting or modifying the duty and responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with respect to the investigations of alleged acts of sabotage or the duty and responsibility of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice under the Proclamations of December 7 and 8, 1941, prescribing regulations for the conduct and control of alien enemies, except as such duty and responsibility is superseded by the designation of military areas hereunder.

Franklin D. Roosevelt The White House February 19, 1942

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt The White House February 19, 1942

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Printable Version Executive Order 9066: Ordering Internment Digital History ID 44 Author: Franklin D. Roosevelt Date:1942 Annotation: President Roosevelt authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan.

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PSA from 1943

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Was Internment Constitutional?
Digital History ID 49

Annotation: The son of Japanese immigrants, Fred Korematsu was just 23 years old when he refused to obey an internment order. In the case of Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether American citizens could be summarily relocated to detention camps solely on the basis of their race. A majority of the Court agreed with Justice Black's view that military necessity justified the relocation. Three justices dissented, denouncing the court ruling as a "legalization of racism."

Document: Korematsu v. United States

Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court.

It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can....

Exclusion of those of Japanese origin was deemed necessary because of the presence of an unascertained number of disloyal members of the group, most of whom we have no doubt were loyal to this country. It was because we could not reject the finding of the military authorities that it was impossible to bring about an immediate segregation of the disloyal from the loyal that we sustained the validity of the curfew order as applying to the whole group. In the instant case, temporary exclusion of the entire group was rested by the military on the same ground. The judgement that exclusion of the whole group was for the same reason a military imperative answers the contention that the exclusion was in the nature of group punishment based on antagonism to those of Japanese origin. That there were members of the group who retained loyalties in Japan has been confirmed by investigations made subsequent to the exclusion. Approximately five thousand American citizens of Japanese ancestry refused to swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and to renounce allegiance to the Japanese Emperor, and several thousand evacuees requested repatriation to Japan.

We uphold the exclusion order as of the time it was made and when the petitioner violated it.... In doing so, we are not unmindful of the hardships imposed by it upon a large group of American citizens.... But hardships are part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships. All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform, feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure. Citizenship has its responsibilities as well as its privileges, and in time of war the burden is always heavier. Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direct emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger....

It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers -- and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies -- we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders -- as inevitably it must -- determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot -- by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight -- now say that at that time these actions were unjustified.

Justice Murphy, dissenting.

This exclusion of "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over "the very brink of constitutional power" and falls into the ugly abyss of racism.

In dealing with matters relating to the prosecution and progress of a war, we must accord great respect and consideration to the judgments of the military authorities who are on the scene and who have full knowledge of the military facts. The scope of their discretion must, as a matter of necessity and common sense, be wide. And their judgments ought not to be overruled lightly by those whose training and duties ill-equip them to deal intelligently with matters so vital to the physical security of the nation.

At the same time, however, it is essential that there be definite limits to military discretion, especially where marital law has not been declared. Individuals must not be left impoverished of their constitutional rights on plea of military necessity that has neither substance nor support....

That this forced exclusion was the result in good measure of this erroneous assumption of racial guilt rather than bona fide military necessity is evidenced by the Commanding General's Final Report on the evacuation from the Pacific Coast area. In it he refers to all individuals of Japanese descents as "subversive," as belonging to "an enemy race" whose "racial strains are undiluted," and as constituting "over 112,000 potential enemies ...at large today" along the Pacific Coast. In support of this blanket condemnation of all persons of Japanese descent, however, no reliable evidence is cited to show that such individuals were generally disloyal, or had generally so conducted themselves in this area as to constitute a special menace to defense installations or war industries, or had otherwise by their behavior furnished reasonable ground for their exclusion as a group.

Justification for the exclusion is sought, instead, mainly upon questionable racial and sociological grounds not ordinarily within the realm of expert military judgment, supplemented by certain semi-military conclusions drawn from an unwarranted use of circumstantial evidence....

No one denies, of course, that there were some disloyal persons of Japanese descent on the Pacific Coast who did all in their power to aid their ancestral land. Similar disloyal activities have been engaged in by many persons of German, Italian and even more pioneer stock in our country. But to infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that under our system of law individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights.... To give constitutional sanction to that inference in this case, however well-intentioned may have been the military command on the Pacific Coast, is to adopt one of the cruelest of the rationales used by our enemies to destroy the dignity of the individual and to encourage and open the door to discriminatory actions against other minority groups in the passions of tomorrow....

I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Source: 323 U.S. 214 (1944).

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Printable Version Was Internment Constitutional? Digital History ID 49 Annotation: The son of Japanese immigrants, Fred Korematsu was just 23 years old when he refused to obey an internment order. In the case of Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether American citizens could be summarily relocated to detention camps solely on the basis of their race.

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The Legal Battle Against Internment Digital History ID 50

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Supreme Court Case

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A case in which the Court held that compulsory exclusion of citizens during times of war is justified in order to reduce the risk of espionage.

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The Supreme Court . Printable Page | PBS

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Early in World War II, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, granting the U.S. military the power to ban tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry from areas deemed critical to domestic security. Promptly exercising the power so bestowed, t…

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Ch 12 vocab words

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Start studying Ch. 11, 12 WWII. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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Hi, I'm John Green. This is Crash Course U.S. History and today we're going to talk about a topic so huge to history buffs that we could only discuss a tiny little fraction of it. I am of course referring to paratroopering. No, World War II. World War II is the only historical event that has like, its own cable channel. Well I should say it used to have its own cable channel. These days the history channel is, of course, devoted primarily to lumberjacks and oh-my-gosh-is-that-guy-really-going-to-shoot-an-alligator? Who knew how nostalgic we could be for documentaries about Joseph Stalin.

Mr. Green! Mr. Green! Finally we get to the good stuff like Patton and Rommel and Churchill and Eisenhower! Stalingrad! Gomer Pyle!

Aw, I'm sorry to disappoint you me-from-the-past but while Patton and Eisenhower were Americans, Rommel was a German (or General Monty Montgomery's dog). Regardless, they were both from the green parts of not-America. Also no Americans fought at the Battle of Stalingrad. Although we did talk about that in Crash Course World History. And Gomer Pyle was a television character played by Jim Neighbors. I believe that you mean to refer to journalist, Ernie Pyle.

(Intro)

So here at Crash Course we like to focus on causes and effects of wars rather than strategy and tactics. But given the importance that World War II has in the American imagination, we're gonna discuss those a bit to today.

We're gonna defy Maria von Trapp and start before the very beginning because America's ideas about foreign policy were shaped by two things: The Great Depression and World War I.

After the experience of World War I it's not surprising that Americans were just a smidge gun shy about involvement in foreign affairs. Seriously Stan? A gun pun? Now? No.

Now America actually came out of World War I stronger than ever but man did a lot of people die for not much change. I mean, I guess the Treaty of Versailles sort of remade Europe but it didn't make it better. And the League of Nations was a flop. And generally there was a lot of disappointed idealism. The period of time between 1920 and the U.S. entry into World War II has been called an Age of Isolationism, although that isn't 100% accurate. I mean, for one thing the U.S. sponsored a series of arms reduction negotiations that resulted in the Washington treaties limiting the number of battleships that a country could possess. But of course those negotiations led to a fat lot of nothing because the idea of a nation limiting it's battleships was a bigger joke even than the League of Nations which I will remind you we invented and then did not join.

Another way that the U.S. was less than isolationist was our pursuance of the Good Neighbor policy with Latin America. So called because we were not a good neighbor. Our idea was to be less intrusive in Latin American politics and we did remove troops from the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which was something, but good neighbor is a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, we continued to support repressive dictators like Samosa and Nicaragua and Batista and Cuba. You know, we've never really been great neighbors. However we were isolationist in the sense that the United States was much less involved in world trade. Largely because of the Depression. You know, that meant that there wasn't much world trade. But also because of tariff policies. But there was also something isolationist about the formal actions of Congress, like after Europe and Asia began to become belligerent in the 1930s with Japan's invasion of China and Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. And the rise of fascist dictators in Spain and of course Germany, Congress responded by passing a series of neutrality acts which banned the sale of arms to belligerents. Even if they were really nice, tea drinking belligerents who we were pals with. And that points to another reason why people tend to regard this as a time of isolationist sentiment, our old friend Eurocentrism. We were generally neutral in terms of foreign intervention when it came to Europe. Popular groups like America First with celebrity members from Charles Lindbergh to E.E. Cummings cautioned against involvement in foreign affairs. But they mostly meant European affairs. The U.S. didn't officially get involved in the war until two years after Hitler invaded Poland. But America was deeply in the European war before we actually sent troops. F.D.R. really wanted to help the allies, especially the Brits, who after the French surrendered in 1940, were the only ones actually fighting the Nazis until 1941 when there were a whole lot of Russians also fighting them. Even Congress recognized that the Nazis were a threat and in 1940 it agreed to allow cash and carry arms sales to Great Britain.

By the way, Cash and Carry is the name of a liquor store near Stan's house. But anyway, the sale of arms were cash sales meaning that they were not paid for with loans or IOU's and the carry part meant that the British would carry their own arms over you know, to Britain.

It's the difference between buying a pizza at a grocery store and getting it delivery except it's not like that at all and...I just want pizza.

Then in September 1940, Congress created the nation's first peace time draft taking the next step toward involvement and that was a huge deal because you know, you don't muster an army with no desire to eventually use it. By 1941, in spite of all our neutrality FDR had pretty clearly sided with the Allies. America became the arsenal of democracy with the Lend Lease Act authorizing military aid to countries that promised to pay it back somehow after the war we promised we'll figure it out. So this essentially gave billions of dollars' worth of arms and war materials to Britain and after the Nazis invaded in June of 1941 to the USSR as well. And the US also froze Japanese assets here and basically ended all trade between America and Japan. But of course the event that pushed us fully into the war happened on December 7th, 1941 when Japanese pilots attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. 187 aircraft were destroyed 18 naval vessels were damaged or destroyed and more than 2,000 American service men were killed. FDR asked Congress for a declaration of war which they granted voting 477 to 1 and the day after that Germany declared war on the United States and World War II officially became a world war.

We almost always start the American story of World War II in Europe because, you know, Hitler. So I'm gonna start in the Pacific where until 1944 there were actually more American personnel deployed than in Europe. Things didn't start well in the Pacific. Let's go to the thought bubble.

Perhaps worse than Pearl Harbor was the surrender of 78,000 American and Filipino troops at Bataan. This was the largest surrender by American troops in history and it resulted in thousands dying on the Bataan Death March to prisoner of war camps where thousands more would die. But in May 1942 we protected Australia from the Japanese fleet by winning the battle of the Coral Sea and then in June we won a huge victory at Midway Island, midway between Hawaii and Japan I guess, and probably named by historians. The US strategy in the Pacific has been called Island Hopping and it involved taking Japanese controlled islands one at a time to be used as bases for bombers that could then be used against Japan itself. It was a slow process and the fighting over these jungle-y South Pacific islands was fierce and extraordinarily costly. The battle at Guadalcanal went from August 1942 to February 1943 and they didn't freeze like in Stalingrad but conditions weren't much better and now let's switch to the European theatre. We call this the European war because we were fighting against Europeans and it ended in Europe but the first US to fight against Nazis actually did so in North Africa so it's kinda a misnomer. American weaponry was pretty poor but after our initial invasion in North Africa in 1942 we got into it and by 1943 we and the British defeated Rommel in the desert and we were ready to invade Europe which should have made Stalin happy because up to this point Russians had been doing the bulk of the dying in the war. But Stalin wasn't happy. First because he was a mean and nasty person and those kinds of people are rarely happy and secondly because rather than invading France and striking at Germany more directly the Allies invaded Sicily and Italy where we fought for most of 1943 and much of 1944 until finally on June 6, we joined some Brits and Canadians in invading Normandy on D-Day. And that was the beginning of the end for the Nazis. Thanks Thought Bubble.

Oh it's time for the mystery document already? Alright. The rules here are simple. I read the mystery document and usually I get it wrong and I get shocked.

"They seemed terribly pathetic to me. They weren't warriors. They were American boys who be mere chance of fate had wound up with guns in their hands, sneaking up a death-laden street in a strange and shattered city in a faraway country in a driving rain. They were afraid, but it was beyond their power to quit. They had no choice. They were good boys. I talked with them all afternoon as we sneaked slowly along the mysterious and rubbed streets, and I know they were good boys. And even though they weren't warriors born to the kill, they won their battles. That was the point."

Man that is some good writing Stan, by famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Pchkow! That was me being a warrior. Pchick! Pchick! I can't even make finger guns. That's how much of a not warrior I am. I'm a worrier. I knew it was Ernie Pyle for two reasons. First he's talking about cities so it's the European theatre. Secondly he's the best European theatre American writer in World War 2, by far.

So while Americans did liberate Paris and were part of the final assault on Germany and also liberated a number of concentration camps, Russians did most of the fighting in Europe, losing at least twenty million people and in the end it was the Russians who captured Berlin. Although the Nazis never really had a chance to win the war after they started fighting the Russians and the Americans entered into it. It didn't actually end until May 8th or 9th, 1945. Depending on when you got the news. And the war in the Pacific continued until August. Japan surrendered unconditionally after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th. We don't celebrate the end of World War 2 in the United States and I guess this is because we would have to decide whether to celebrate the end of the war in Europe or in Japan or maybe it's just difficult to celebrate the use of atomic weapons.

Atomic bombs were developed through the Manhattan project so called because the bombs were partly invented in Chicago and then built and tested in New Mexico, trickery. That was the sort of covert thing the US used to do really well before we developed the internet. Although we weren't that good at it. Since the Soviets did steal our technology and build a nuclear bomb like three years later.

The two atomic bombs that were eventually dropped were the most destructive weapons the world had ever seen. The one dropped on Hiroshima killed 70,000 people instantly, and by the end of 1945 another 70,000 had died from radiation poisoning. The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki also killed 70,000 people; in fact, the death toll from those two bombs was greater than the number of American fatalities in the entire Pacific war. And that leads to one of the most hotly debated questions in recent history. Was the use of atomic bombs justified or ethical? Those arguing against their use often point out that the Truman administration had good evidence that Japan would surrender if they were allowed to keep their Emperor on the throne. And some also point out that the primary targets were not military, although there were 40,000 troops stationed in Hiroshima. Others argue that the real reason the United States dropped the bomb was to threaten the USSR and prevent them from taking more territory in the East. And then there's the argument that using such a destructive weapon was morally reprehensible because it was so destructive as to be qualitatively different from other weapons. For a couple centuries our weapons had had the theoretical capability of eliminating all humans, but never before had it been so easy.

But other reply that dropping the bombs helped save American lives, some of Truman's advisers worried that invasion of Japan would result in 250,000 American deaths, and at least that many Japanese deaths. And that's important to note because if there was one thing truly horrible innovative about World War 2, it was bombing. Sure there was radar and jets, but they weren't nearly as significant as aerial bombardment and by the time the A-Bombs dropped the idea of precision bombing only military targets, wasn't an option; in part because incredibly risky to planes and pilots. And by 1945 it was an acceptable and wide spread strategy to target civilians as part of a total war. In World War 2, perhaps 40% of the estimated 50 million people killed were civilians. Compare that with World War 1 where it was only 10%. We should be horrified that 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima but we should be horrified by all the civilian attacks in World War 2. 25,000 people died in Dresden, more than 100,000 died in the firebombing of Tokyo in March of 1945.

Thinking about Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs is important because it forces us to consider our understanding of history. Part of why we say that using atomic bombs was worse than conventional bombing, is because we know what came after; the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation. From the present the dawn of atomic warfare is indeed terrifying. But people living at the time were living amid a different kind of terror, and they couldn't have known that there would be a nuclear arms race that threatened all of humanity. The Japanese didn't look like they were going to give up, and people on both sides were dying every day. So before we pass judgment, let's try to put ourselves in the shoes of both the soldiers who were fighting who didn't have to fight on mainland Japan and the civilians who were killed by the bombs.

There's no answer to be found there but the opportunity of studying history is the opportunity to experience empathy. Now of course we're never going to know what it's like to be someone else, to have your life saved or taken by decisions made by the allied command. Studying history and making genuine attempts at empathy helps us to grapple with the complexity of the world not as we wish it were, but as we find it. Thanks for watching, I'll see you next week.

Crash Course is made through the combined efforts of all of these nice people, and it exists because of you and your support through subbable.com. Subbable is a voluntary subscription service that allows you to support Crash Course directly so that we can keep this show for free forever for everyone. You can check out our Subbable by clicking right there or there's also a link in the video info. There are lots of great perks, but the greatest perk is knowing that you are making this show possible. Thank you so much, Thanks for watching and as we say in my hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.

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Nerdfighteria Wiki - World War II Part 1: Crash Course US History #35

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Hi, I'm John Green. This is Crash Course U.S. History and today we're going to talk about a topic so huge to history buffs that we could only discuss a tiny little fraction of it. I am of course referring to paratroopering. No, World War II.

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Rio Vista Farm in Socorro, Texas is home to the last remaining center that processed braceros - the millions of Mexican laborers who entered the United States from 1942 and 1962. With World War II causing a shortage of field workers, the US welcomed Mexicans to fill the void through the Bracero Program. As Socorro pushes for a preservation project to recover this part of its past, photo agency MPTV uncovered a series of gripping images that further prove why this history cannot be overlooked.

Back in 1957, the Saturday Evening Post assigned photographer Sid Avery to document the experience of these Mexican fieldworkers. In the 60 years since the Post first published them, they have never been reproduced, according to . Avery, known for his celebrity portraits, photographed the men on farms, standing shirtless as they're dusted with DDT, and living in their temporary housing. The accompanying story, written by Fred Eldridge, further explains how 400,000 workers entered the US through the program each year. It centered on Rafael Tamayo, who decided to enter the program, despite the social stigma attached to being a bracero. He saw it as a way to improve his situation. "I came to America, because my family and I are very poor," he told the Post. "I earn seven pesos [56 American cents] a day."

The article, however, didn't sufficiently point out the injustices and exploitation that occurred as a result of the Bracero Program. Employers violated their civil liberties and legal rights of the workers who endured backbreaking work. As a matter of fact, Leonard Nadel set out to document the what really went on in 1956 as proof that their working conditions needed to improve.

The program guaranteed workers a "minimum wage and sanitary housing," according to Kelly Lytle Hernandez, an associate professor of history and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Employers, who preferred the previously unregulated practices, refused to use the program - leading to Operation Wetback in 1954. In South Texas, farmers blocked and used their weapons against the US Border Patrol trying to remove their unregulated workers. Operation Wetback intended to force these farmers to hire braceros.

When the program came to an end in 1964, farmers struggled to find workers. Meanwhile, undocumented immigration rose. With the working conditions on farms and immigration still important topics for the Latino community today, these photos remain relevant, especially as some propose bringing back a similar model today.

Check out more images on .

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Gripping Photos Documenting the Bracero Program Workers Are Unearthed After 60 Years

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Rio Vista Farm in Socorro, Texas is home to the last remaining center that processed braceros - the millions of Mexican laborers who entered the United States from 1942 and 1962. With World War II causing a shortage of field workers, the US welcomed Mexicans to fill the void through the Bracero Program.

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It was June 1943 when the riots broke out. For over a week, white U.S. soldiers and sailors traversed Los Angeles beating up allegedly "unpatriotic" Mexican-American men, identifiable by their conspicuously voluminous attire. It was, as the historian Kathy Peiss writes in Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, "perhaps the first time in American history that fashion was believed to be the cause of widespread civil unrest." Starting this month, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will feature an authentic example of one of these catalyzing ensembles as part of a new exhibition, " Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear, 1715-2015."

With its super-sized shoulder pads, sprawling lapels and peg leg pants, the zoot suit grew out of the "drape" suits popular in Harlem dance halls in the mid-1930s. The flowing trousers were tapered at the ankles to prevent jitterbugging couples from getting tripped up while they twirled. By the '40s, the suits were worn by minority men in working-class neighborhoods throughout the country. Though the zoot suit would be donned by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, it was "not a costume or uniform from the world of entertainment," the Chicago big-band trumpeter and clothier Harold Fox once said. "It came right off the street and out of the ghetto.''

Fox was one among many, from Chicago to Harlem to Memphis, who took credit for inventing the zoot suit-the term came out of African-American slang-but it was actually unbranded and illicit: There was no one designer associated with the look, no department store where you could buy one. These were ad hoc outfits, regular suits bought two sizes too large and then creatively tailored to dandyish effect.

To some men, the suit's ostentatiousness was a way of refusing to be ignored. The garment had "profound political meaning," wrote Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man. "For those without other forms of cultural capital," says Peiss, "fashion can be a way of claiming space for yourself."

Wartime rations on fabric made wearing such oversized clothing an inherently disobedient act. Langston Hughes wrote in 1943 that for people with a history of cultural and economic poverty, "too much becomes JUST ENOUGH for them." To underscore the style's almost treasonous indulgence, press accounts exaggerated the price of zoot suits by upwards of 50 percent. But even the real cost of one was near-prohibitive for the young men who coveted them-Malcolm X, in his autobiography, recounts buying one on credit.

Though policemen slashed some zoot suits to ruins, the more likely reason for their disappearance once the craze faded in the 1950s was less dramatic-most were simply refashioned into other garments. Original specimens are mythically hard to come by: It took curators from LACMA over a decade to find one, and when they did, in 2011, it cost them nearly $80,000, an auction record for an item of 20th-century menswear.

But the suit had a luxuriant afterlife, influencing styles from Canada and France to the Soviet Union and South Africa. It was the subject of the Who's first single. In 1978, the actor and playwright Luis Valdez wrote , the first Chicano play on Broadway. The outfit's iconic shape was taken up in the '80s by Japanese avant-garde designers, who sent models down the runway in tumescent suiting around the time that MC Hammer put on his drop-crotch pants-causing outrage in the form of widespread hand-wringing over the alleged immorality of sagging pants, a style that has never quite gone out of fashion. By the time a record called " Zoot Suit Riot," by the swing-revival band the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, became a hit in the late-'90s, the suit's provenance had largely been forgotten. No longer was the zoot suit evocative of the expressive power of fashion for the disenfranchised so much as it was a historical oddity known by a charming name.

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Unraveling the jazzy life of a snazzy style

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Auschwitz Survivors Return To Death Camp 75 Years Later‌ | NBC Nightly News

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Crash Course US History is made by all of these nice people [John Green, Stan Muller, Raoul Meyer, Rosianna Halse Rojas, Stan Muller, Meredith Danko] and it exists because of you and your support through Subbable.

Here at Crash Course, we like making educational content that's free for everyone forever. And we can do that because many people subscribe on a monthly basis through Subbable.com to Crash Course. There are lots of cool perks like signed posters over at Subbable, but the biggest perk is that you get to keep watching this show! So thank you for making it possible, thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome...

[in captions on video only:] Boom. Oh god. That went worse than I expected.

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Nerdfighteria Wiki - World War II Part 2 - The Homefront: Crash Course US History #36

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Crash Course US History is made by all of these nice people [John Green, Stan Muller, Raoul Meyer, Rosianna Halse Rojas, Stan Muller, Meredith Danko] and it exists because of you and your support through Subbable. Here at Crash Course, we like making educational content that's free for everyone forever.

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You Will Love History link

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http://bit.ly/2yuaGQM Creating an innovative and engaging lesson can be difficult and time consuming, especially on the dropping of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in the Pacific. This bundle is the complete collection of tools you need to teach the course of events that led to Allied victory in the Pacific in 1945!

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How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow Laws

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How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow Laws

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In 1935, Nazi Germany passed two radically discriminatory pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. Together, these were known as the Nuremberg Laws, and they laid the legal groundwork for the persecution of Jewish people during the Holocaust and World War II.

When the Nazis set out to legally disenfranchise and discriminate against Jewish citizens, they weren't just coming up with ideas out of thin air. They closely studied the laws of another country. According to James Q. Whitman, author of Hitler's American Model, that country was the United States.

"America in the early 20th century was the leading racist jurisdiction in the world," says Whitman, who is a professor at Yale Law School. "Nazi lawyers, as a result, were interested in, looked very closely at, [and] were ultimately influenced by American race law."

In particular, Nazis admired the Jim Crow-era laws that discriminated against Black Americans and segregated them from white Americans, and they debated whether to introduce similar segregation in Germany.

Yet they ultimately decided that it wouldn't go far enough.

"One of the most striking Nazi views was that Jim Crow was a suitable racist program in the United States because American Blacks were already oppressed and poor," he says. "But then in Germany, by contrast, where the Jews (as the Nazis imagined it) were rich and powerful, it was necessary to take more severe measures."

Because of this, Nazis were more interested in how the U.S. had designated Native Americans, Filipinos and other groups as non-citizens even though they lived in the U.S. or its territories. These models influenced the citizenship portion of the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jewish Germans of their citizenship and classified them as "nationals."

But a component of the Jim Crow era that Nazis did think they could translate into Germany were anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited interracial marriages in 30 of 48 states.

"America had, by a wide margin, the harshest law of this kind," Whitman says. "In particular, some of the state laws threatened severe criminal punishment for interracial marriage. That was something radical Nazis were very eager to do in Germany as well."

The idea of banning Jewish and Aryan marriages presented the Nazis with a dilemma: How would they tell who was Jewish and who was not? After all, race and ethnic categories are socially constructed, and interracial relationships produce offspring who don't fall neatly into one box.

Again, the Nazis looked to America.

"Connected with these anti-miscegenation laws was a great deal of American jurisprudence on how to classify who belonged to which race," he says.

Controversial "one-drop" rules stipulated that anyone with any Black ancestry was legally Black and could not marry a white person. Laws also defined what made a person Asian or Native American, in order to prevent these groups from marrying whites (notably, Virginia had a "Pocahontas Exception" for prominent white families who claimed to be descended from Pocahontas).

The Nuremberg Laws, too, came up with a system of determining who belonged to what group, allowing the Nazis to criminalize marriage and sex between Jewish and Aryan people. Rather than adopting a "one-drop rule," the Nazis decreed that a Jewish person was anyone who had three or more Jewish grandparents.

Which means, as Whitman notes, "that American racial classification law was much harsher than anything the Nazis themselves were willing to introduce in Germany."

It should come as no surprise then, that the Nazis weren't uniformly condemned in the U.S. before the country entered the war. In the early 1930s, American eugenicists welcomed Nazi ideas about racial purity and republished their propaganda. American aviator Charles Lindbergh accepted a swastika medal from the Nazi Party in 1938.

Once the United States entered the war, it took a decidedly anti-Nazi stance. But Black American troops noticed the similarities between the two countries, and confronted them head-on with a "Double V Campaign." Its goal? Victory abroad against the Axis powers-and victory at home against Jim Crow.

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In 1935, Nazi Germany passed two radically discriminatory pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. Together, these were known as the Nuremberg Laws, and they laid the legal groundwork for the persecution of Jewish people during the Holocaust and World War II.

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Randolph, Rustin, and the Origins of the March on Washington: Crash Course Black American History 32

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Randolph, Rustin, & the Origins of the March on Washington: Crash Course Black American History #32

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On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced evacuation and relocation of all people in "military areas" who might pose a threat to national security. Since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor had occurred just months earlier, many believed that people of Japanese ancestry posed that threat, and the entire West Coast was deemed a military area.

Over the next six months, 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent were taken from their homes and put into internment camps-nearly 70,000 were American citizens.

"Evacuees of Japanese ancestry entraining for Manzanar, Calif., 250 miles away, where they now are housed in a War Relocation Authority center," April 1, 1942. (Records of the War Relocation Authority, National Archives)

The evacuation forced many to sell their property and businesses at severe losses. Following the war, several groups sought compensation for the internees. Congress subsequently passed legislation providing nominal compensation, but nothing near what was needed to attempt to make up for lost property, let alone the immeasurable loss of civil liberty.

In 1980, Congress established a commission to review the facts surrounding EO 9066 and its impact on American citizens and others affected by the order. The commission held hearings around the country and heard testimony from more than 750 witnesses.

In its 467-page report, entitled Personal Justice Denied, the commission found the U.S. Government systematically detained people of Japanese ancestry despite a complete lack of evidence of any threat and without any direct military necessity.

The commission made several recommendations, including granting wartime survivors a public apology, individual reparations, and a public education fund. The commission's records are available at the National Archives, which includes many personal stories from those interned.

In 1988, Congress passed H.R. 442 to implement the commission's recommendations. The bill number was to honor the World War II 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which consisted almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry.

The legislation acknowledged the "fundamental injustice" of the internment and apologized on behalf of the people of the United States. The act further granted each of the estimated 60,000 surviving internees $20,000 in compensation, stating the government's actions were motivated "by racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

The Presidential signing ceremony took place in front of many members of Congress of Japanese descent, including Congressman Norman Mineta, who was interned when he was a child.

In his remarks, President Ronald Reagan stated the act attempted to "right a grave wrong" but acknowledged no amount of money could make up for those lost years.
Interested in learning more? The National Archives has a vast amount of materials related to World War II Japanese American Internment and Relocation. Visit our website for more information.
The Reagan Presidential Library has made the video of the ceremony available on YouTube.

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Japanese American Internment: Righting a Wrong

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On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the forced evacuation and relocation of all people in "military areas" who might pose a threat to national security. Since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor had occurred just months earlier, many believed that people of Japanese ancestry posed that threat, and the entire West Coast was deemed a military area.

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Ch 24 WWII

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The 1930s and 1940s were trying times. A global economic crisis gave way to a global war that became the deadliest and most destructive in human history. Perhaps eighty million individuals lost their lives during World War II. The war saw industrialized genocide and nearly threatened the eradication of an entire people. It also unleashed the most fearsome technology ever used in war. And when it ended, the United States found itself alone as the world's greatest superpower. Armed with the world's greatest economy, it looked forward to the fruits of a prosperous consumers' economy. But the war raised as many questions as it would settle and unleashed new social forces at home and abroad that confronted generations of Americans to come.

Although the United States joined the war in 1941, two years after Europe exploded into conflict in 1939, the path to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the surprise attack that threw the United States headlong into war, began much earlier. For the Empire of Japan, the war had begun a decade before Pearl Harbor.

On September 18, 1931, a small explosion tore up railroad tracks controlled by the Japanese-owned South Manchuria Railway near the city of Shenyang (Mukden) in the Chinese province of Manchuria. The railway company condemned the bombing as the work of anti-Japanese Chinese dissidents. Evidence, though, suggests that the initial explosion was neither an act of Chinese anti-Japanese sentiment nor an accident but an elaborate ruse planned by the Japanese to provide a basis for invasion. In response, the privately operated Japanese Guandong (Kwangtung) army began shelling the Shenyang garrison the next day, and the garrison fell before nightfall. Hungry for Chinese territory and witnessing the weakness and disorganization of Chinese forces, but under the pretense of protecting Japanese citizens and investments, the Japanese Imperial Army ordered a full-scale invasion of Manchuria. The invasion was swift. Without a centralized Chinese army, the Japanese quickly defeated isolated Chinese warlords and by the end of February 1932, all of Manchuria was firmly under Japanese control. Japan established the nation of Manchukuo out of the former province of Manchuria.

This seemingly small skirmish-known by the Chinese as the September 18 Incident and the Japanese as the Manchurian Incident-sparked a war that would last thirteen years and claim the lives of over thirty-five million people. Comprehending Japanese motivations for attacking China and the grueling stalemate of the ensuing war are crucial for understanding Japan's seemingly unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, and, therefore, for understanding the involvement of the United States in World War II as well.

Despite their rapid advance into Manchuria, the Japanese put off the invasion of China for nearly three years. Japan occupied a precarious domestic and international position after the September 18 Incident. At home, Japan was riven by political factionalism due to its stagnating economy. Leaders were torn as to whether to address modernization and lack of natural resources through unilateral expansion (the conquest of resource-rich areas such as Manchuria to export raw materials to domestic Japanese industrial bases such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki) or international cooperation (a philosophy of pan-Asianism in an anti-Western coalition that would push the colonial powers out of Asia). Ultimately, after a series of political crises and assassinations enflamed tensions, pro-war elements within the Japanese military triumphed over the more moderate civilian government. Japan committed itself to aggressive military expansion.

Chinese leaders Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang appealed to the League of Nations for assistance against Japan. The United States supported the Chinese protest, proclaiming the Stimson Doctrine in January 1932, which refused to recognize any state established as a result of Japanese aggression. Meanwhile, the League of Nations sent Englishman Victor Bulwer-Lytton to investigate the September 18 Incident. After a six-month investigation, Bulwer-Lytton found the Japanese guilty of inciting the September 18 incident and demanded the return of Manchuria to China. The Japanese withdrew from the League of Nations in March 1933.

Japan isolated itself from the world. Its diplomatic isolation empowered radical military leaders who could point to Japanese military success in Manchuria and compare it to the diplomatic failures of the civilian government. The military took over Japanese policy. And in the military's eyes, the conquest of China would not only provide for Japan's industrial needs, it would secure Japanese supremacy in East Asia.

The Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of China. It assaulted the Marco Polo Bridge on July 7, 1937, and routed the forces of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army led by Chiang Kai-shek. The broken Chinese army gave up Beiping (Beijing) to the Japanese on August 8, Shanghai on November 26, and the capital, Nanjing (Nanking), on December 13. Between 250,000 and 300,000 people were killed, and tens of thousands of women were raped, when the Japanese besieged and then sacked Nanjing. The Western press labeled it the Rape of Nanjing. To halt the invading enemy, Chiang Kai-shek adopted a scorched-earth strategy of "trading space for time." His Nationalist government retreated inland, burning villages and destroying dams, and established a new capital at the Yangtze River port of Chongqing (Chungking). Although the Nationalists' scorched-earth policy hurt the Japanese military effort, it alienated scores of dislocated Chinese civilians and became a potent propaganda tool of the emerging Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Americans read about the brutal fighting in China, but the United States lacked both the will and the military power to oppose the Japanese invasion. After the gut-wrenching carnage of World War I, many Americans retreated toward isolationism by opposing any involvement in the conflagrations burning in Europe and Asia. And even if Americans wished to intervene, their military was lacking. The Japanese army was a technologically advanced force consisting of 4,100,000 men and 900,000 Chinese collaborators-and that was in China alone. The Japanese military was armed with modern rifles, artillery, armor, and aircraft. By 1940, the Japanese navy was the third-largest and among the most technologically advanced in the world.

Still, Chinese Nationalists lobbied Washington for aid. Chiang Kai-shek's wife, Soong May-ling-known to the American public as Madame Chiang-led the effort. Born into a wealthy Chinese merchant family in 1898, Madame Chiang spent much of her childhood in the United States and graduated from Wellesley College in 1917 with a major in English literature. In contrast to her gruff husband, Madame Chiang was charming and able to use her knowledge of American culture and values to garner support for her husband and his government. But while the United States denounced Japanese aggression, it took no action.

As Chinese Nationalists fought for survival, the Communist Party was busy collecting people and supplies in the northwestern Shaanxi Province. China had been at war with itself when the Japanese came. Nationalists battled a stubborn communist insurgency. In 1935 the Nationalists threw the communists out of the fertile Chinese coast, but an ambitious young commander named Mao Zedong recognized the power of the Chinese peasant population. In Shaanxi, Mao recruited from the local peasantry, building his force from a meager seven thousand survivors at the end of the Long March in 1935 to a robust 1.2 million members by the end of the war.

Although Japan had conquered much of the country, the Nationalists regrouped and the communists rearmed. An uneasy truce paused the country's civil war and refocused efforts on the invaders. The Chinese could not dislodge the Japanese, but they could stall their advance. The war mired in stalemate.

Across the globe in Europe, the continent's major powers were still struggling with the aftereffects of World War I when the global economic crisis spiraled much of the continent into chaos. Germany's Weimar Republic collapsed with the economy, and out of the ashes emerged Adolf Hitler's National Socialists-the Nazis. Championing German racial supremacy, fascist government, and military expansionism, Hitler rose to power and, after aborted attempts to take power in Germany, became chancellor in 1933 and the Nazis conquered German institutions. Democratic traditions were smashed. Leftist groups were purged. Hitler repudiated the punitive damages and strict military limitations of the Treaty of Versailles. He rebuilt the German military and navy. He reoccupied regions lost during the war and remilitarized the Rhineland, along the border with France. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Hitler and Benito Mussolini-the fascist Italian leader who had risen to power in the 1920s-intervened for the Spanish fascists, toppling the communist Spanish Republican Party. Britain and France stood by warily and began to rebuild their militaries, anxious in the face of a renewed Germany but still unwilling to draw Europe into another bloody war.

In his autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf, Hitler advocated for the unification of Europe's German peoples under one nation and that nation's need for Lebensraum, or living space, particularly in Eastern Europe, to supply Germans with the land and resources needed for future prosperity. The Untermenschen (lesser humans) would have to go. Once in power, Hitler worked toward the twin goals of unification and expansion.

In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and set its sights on the Sudetenland, a large, ethnically German area of Czechoslovakia. Britain and France, alarmed but still anxious to avoid war, agreed-without Czechoslovakia's input-that Germany could annex the region in return for a promise to stop all future German aggression. They thought that Hitler could be appeased, but it became clear that his ambitions would continue pushing German expansion. In March 1939, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia and began to make demands on Poland. Britain and France promised war. And war came.

Hitler signed a secret agreement-the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact-with the Soviet Union that coordinated the splitting of Poland between the two powers and promised nonaggression thereafter. The European war began when the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France declared war two days later and mobilized their armies. Britain and France hoped that the Poles could hold out for three to four months, enough time for the Allies to intervene. Poland fell in three weeks. The German army, anxious to avoid the rigid, grinding war of attrition that took so many millions in the stalemate of World War I, built their new modern army for speed and maneuverability. German doctrine emphasized the use of tanks, planes, and motorized infantry (infantry that used trucks for transportation instead of marching) to concentrate forces, smash front lines, and wreak havoc behind the enemy's defenses. It was called Blitzkrieg, or lightning war.

After the fall of Poland, France and its British allies braced for an inevitable German attack. Throughout the winter of 1939-1940, however, fighting was mostly confined to smaller fronts in Norway. Belligerents called it the Sitzkrieg (sitting war). But in May 1940, Hitler launched his attack into Western Europe. Mirroring the German's Schlieffen Plan of 1914 in the previous war, Germany attacked through the Netherlands and Belgium to avoid the prepared French defenses along the French-German border. Poland had fallen in three weeks; France lasted only a few weeks more. By June, Hitler was posing for photographs in front of the Eiffel Tower. Germany split France in half. Germany occupied and governed the north, and the south would be ruled under a puppet government in Vichy.

With France under heel, Hitler turned to Britain. Operation Sea Lion-the planned German invasion of the British Isles-required air superiority over the English Channel. From June until October the German Luftwaffe fought the Royal Air Force (RAF) for control of the skies. Despite having fewer planes, British pilots won the so-called Battle of Britain, saving the islands from immediate invasion and prompting the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, to declare, "Never before in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."

If Britain was safe from invasion, it was not immune from additional air attacks. Stymied in the Battle of Britain, Hitler began the Blitz-a bombing campaign against cities and civilians. Hoping to crush the British will to fight, the Luftwaffe bombed the cities of London, Liverpool, and Manchester every night from September to the following May. Children were sent far into the countryside to live with strangers to shield them from the bombings. Remaining residents took refuge in shelters and subway tunnels, emerging each morning to put out fires and bury the dead. The Blitz ended in June 1941, when Hitler, confident that Britain was temporarily out of the fight, launched Operation Barbarossa-the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Hoping to capture agricultural lands, seize oil fields, and break the military threat of Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler broke the two powers' 1939 nonaggression pact and, on June 22, invaded the Soviet Union. It was the largest land invasion in history. France and Poland had fallen in weeks, and German officials hoped to break Russia before the winter. And initially, the Blitzkrieg worked. The German military quickly conquered enormous swaths of land and netted hundreds of thousands of prisoners. But Russia was too big and the Soviets were willing to sacrifice millions to stop the fascist advance. After recovering from the initial shock of the German invasion, Stalin moved his factories east of the Urals, out of range of the Luftwaffe. He ordered his retreating army to adopt a "scorched earth" policy, to move east and destroy food, rails, and shelters to stymie the advancing German army. The German army slogged forward. It split into three pieces and stood at the gates of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Leningrad, but supply lines now stretched thousands of miles, Soviet infrastructure had been destroyed, partisans harried German lines, and the brutal Russian winter arrived. Germany had won massive gains but the winter found Germany exhausted and overextended. In the north, the German army starved Leningrad to death during an interminable siege; in the south, at Stalingrad, the two armies bled themselves to death in the destroyed city; and, in the center, on the outskirts of Moscow, in sight of the capital city, the German army faltered and fell back. It was the Soviet Union that broke Hitler's army. Twenty-five million Soviet soldiers and civilians died during the Great Patriotic War, and roughly 80 percent of all German casualties during the war came on the Eastern Front. The German army and its various conscripts suffered 850,000 casualties at the Battle of Stalingrad alone. In December 1941, Germany began its long retreat.

While Hitler marched across Europe, the Japanese continued their war in the Pacific. In 1939 the United States dissolved its trade treaties with Japan and the following year cut off supplies of war materials by embargoing oil, steel, rubber, and other vital goods. It was hoped that economic pressure would shut down the Japanese war machine. Instead, Japan's resource-starved military launched invasions across the Pacific to sustain its war effort. The Japanese called their new empire the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and, with the cry of "Asia for the Asians," made war against European powers and independent nations throughout the region. Diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States collapsed. The United States demanded that Japan withdraw from China; Japan considered the oil embargo a de facto declaration of war.

Japanese military planners, believing that American intervention was inevitable, planned a coordinated Pacific offensive to neutralize the United States and other European powers and provide time for Japan to complete its conquests and fortify its positions. On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japanese military planners hoped to destroy enough battleships and aircraft carriers to cripple American naval power for years. Twenty-four hundred Americans were killed in the attack.

American isolationism fell at Pearl Harbor. Japan also assaulted Hong Kong, the Philippines, and American holdings throughout the Pacific, but it was the attack on Hawaii that threw the United States into a global conflict. Franklin Roosevelt called December 7 "a date which will live in infamy" and called for a declaration of war, which Congress answered within hours. Within a week of Pearl Harbor the United States had declared war on the entire Axis, turning two previously separate conflicts into a true world war.

The American war began slowly. Britain had stood alone militarily in Europe, but American supplies had bolstered their resistance. Hitler unleashed his U-boat "wolf packs" into the Atlantic Ocean with orders to sink anything carrying aid to Britain, but Britain's and the United States' superior tactics and technology won them the Battle of the Atlantic. British code breakers cracked Germany's radio codes and the surge of intelligence, dubbed Ultra, coupled with massive naval convoys escorted by destroyers armed with sonar and depth charges, gave the advantage to the Allies and by 1942, Hitler's Kriegsmarine was losing ships faster than they could be built.

In North Africa in 1942, British victory at El Alamein began pushing the Germans back. In November, the first American combat troops entered the European war, landing in French Morocco and pushing the Germans east while the British pushed west. By 1943, the Allies had pushed Axis forces out of Africa. In January President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met at Casablanca to discuss the next step of the European war. Churchill convinced Roosevelt to chase the Axis up Italy, into the "soft underbelly" of Europe. Afterward, Roosevelt announced to the press that the Allies would accept nothing less than unconditional surrender.

Meanwhile, the Army Air Force (AAF) sent hundreds (and eventually thousands) of bombers to England in preparation for a massive strategic bombing campaign against Germany. The plan was to bomb Germany around the clock. American bombers hit German ball-bearing factories, rail yards, oil fields, and manufacturing centers during the day, while the British RAF carpet-bombed German cities at night. Flying in formation, they initially flew unescorted, since many believed that bombers equipped with defensive firepower flew too high and too fast to be attacked. However, advanced German technology allowed fighters to easily shoot down the lumbering bombers. On some disastrous missions, the Germans shot down almost 50 percent of American aircraft. However, the advent and implementation of a long-range escort fighter let the bombers hit their targets more accurately while fighters confronted opposing German aircraft.

In the wake of the Soviets' victory at Stalingrad, the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) met in Tehran in November 1943. Dismissing Africa and Italy as a sideshow, Stalin demanded that Britain and the United States invade France to relieve pressure on the Eastern Front. Churchill was hesitant, but Roosevelt was eager. The invasion was tentatively scheduled for 1944.

Back in Italy, the "soft underbelly" turned out to be much tougher than Churchill had imagined. Italy's narrow, mountainous terrain gave the defending Axis the advantage. Movement up the peninsula was slow, and in some places conditions returned to the trenchlike warfare of World War I. Americans attempted to land troops behind them at Anzio on the western coast of Italy, but, surrounded, they suffered heavy casualties. Still, the Allies pushed up the peninsula, Mussolini's government revolted, and a new Italian government quickly made peace.

On the day the American army entered Rome, American, British and Canadian forces launched Operation Overlord, the long-awaited invasion of France. D-Day, as it became popularly known, was the largest amphibious assault in history. American general Dwight Eisenhower was uncertain enough of the attack's chances that the night before the invasion he wrote two speeches: one for success and one for failure. The Allied landings at Normandy were successful, and although progress across France was much slower than hoped for, Paris was liberated roughly two months later. Allied bombing expeditions meanwhile continued to level German cities and industrial capacity. Perhaps four hundred thousand German civilians were killed by allied bombing.

The Nazis were crumbling on both fronts. Hitler tried but failed to turn the war in his favor in the west. The Battle of the Bulge failed to drive the Allies back to the English Channel, but the delay cost the Allies the winter. The invasion of Germany would have to wait, while the Soviet Union continued its relentless push westward, ravaging German populations in retribution for German war crimes.

German counterattacks in the east failed to dislodge the Soviet advance, destroying any last chance Germany might have had to regain the initiative. 1945 dawned with the end of European war in sight. The Big Three met again at Yalta in the Soviet Union, where they reaffirmed the demand for Hitler's unconditional surrender and began to plan for postwar Europe.

The Soviet Union reached Germany in January, and the Americans crossed the Rhine in March. In late April American and Soviet troops met at the Elbe while the Soviets pushed relentlessly by Stalin to reach Berlin first and took the capital city in May, days after Hitler and his high command had committed suicide in a city bunker. Germany was conquered. The European war was over. Allied leaders met again, this time at Potsdam, Germany, where it was decided that Germany would be divided into pieces according to current Allied occupation, with Berlin likewise divided, pending future elections. Stalin also agreed to join the fight against Japan in approximately three months.

As Americans celebrated V-E (Victory in Europe) Day, they redirected their full attention to the still-raging Pacific War. As in Europe, the war in the Pacific started slowly. After Pearl Harbor, the American-controlled Philippine archipelago fell to Japan. After running out of ammunition and supplies, the garrison of American and Filipino soldiers surrendered. The prisoners were marched eighty miles to their prisoner-of-war camp without food, water, or rest. Ten thousand died on the Bataan Death March.

But as Americans mobilized their armed forces, the tide turned. In the summer of 1942, American naval victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the aircraft carrier duel at the Battle of Midway crippled Japan's Pacific naval operations. To dislodge Japan's hold over the Pacific, the U.S. military began island hopping: attacking island after island, bypassing the strongest but seizing those capable of holding airfields to continue pushing Japan out of the region. Combat was vicious. At Guadalcanal American soldiers saw Japanese soldiers launch suicidal charges rather than surrender. Many Japanese soldiers refused to be taken prisoner or to take prisoners themselves. Such tactics, coupled with American racial prejudice, turned the Pacific Theater into a more brutal and barbarous conflict than the European Theater.

Japanese defenders fought tenaciously. Few battles were as one-sided as the Battle of the Philippine Sea, or what the Americans called the Japanese counterattack, the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. Japanese soldiers bled the Americans in their advance across the Pacific. At Iwo Jima, an eight-square-mile island of volcanic rock, seventeen thousand Japanese soldiers held the island against seventy thousand Marines for over a month. At the cost of nearly their entire force, they inflicted almost thirty thousand casualties before the island was lost.

By February 1945, American bombers were in range of the mainland. Bombers hit Japan's industrial facilities but suffered high casualties. To spare bomber crews from dangerous daylight raids, and to achieve maximum effect against Japan's wooden cities, many American bombers dropped incendiary weapons that created massive firestorms and wreaked havoc on Japanese cities. Over sixty Japanese cities were fire-bombed. American fire bombs killed one hundred thousand civilians in Tokyo in March 1945.

In June 1945, after eighty days of fighting and tens of thousands of casualties, the Americans captured the island of Okinawa. The mainland of Japan was open before them. It was a viable base from which to launch a full invasion of the Japanese homeland and end the war.

Estimates varied, but given the tenacity of Japanese soldiers fighting on islands far from their home, some officials estimated that an invasion of the Japanese mainland could cost half a million American casualties and perhaps millions of Japanese civilians. Historians debate the many motivations that ultimately drove the Americans to use atomic weapons against Japan, and many American officials criticized the decision, but these would be the numbers later cited by government leaders and military officials to justify their use.

Early in the war, fearing that the Germans might develop an atomic bomb, the U.S. government launched the Manhattan Project, a hugely expensive, ambitious program to harness atomic energy and create a single weapon capable of leveling entire cities. The Americans successfully exploded the world's first nuclear device, Trinity, in New Mexico in July 1945. (Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, where the bomb was designed, later recalled that the event reminded him of Hindu scripture: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.") Two more bombs-Fat Man and Little Boy-were built and detonated over two Japanese cities in August. Hiroshima was hit on August 6. Over one hundred thousand civilians were killed. Nagasaki followed on August 9. Perhaps eighty thousand civilians were killed.

Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan on August 15. On September 2, aboard the battleship USS Missouri, delegates from the Japanese government formally signed their surrender. World War II was finally over.

Almost eighteen million men served in World War II. Volunteers rushed to join the military after Pearl Harbor, but the majority-over ten million-were drafted into service. Volunteers could express their preference for assignment, and many preempted the draft by volunteering. Regardless, recruits judged I-A, "fit for service," were moved into basic training, where soldiers were developed physically and trained in the basic use of weapons and military equipment. Soldiers were indoctrinated into the chain of command and introduced to military life. After basic, soldiers moved on to more specialized training. For example, combat infantrymen received additional weapons and tactical training, and radio operators learned transmission codes and the operation of field radios. Afterward, an individual's experience varied depending on what service he entered and to what theater he was assigned.

Soldiers and Marines bore the brunt of on-the-ground combat. After transportation to the front by trains, ships, and trucks, they could expect to march carrying packs weighing anywhere from twenty to fifty pounds containing rations, ammunition, bandages, tools, clothing, and miscellaneous personal items in addition to their weapons. Sailors, once deployed, spent months at sea operating their assigned vessels. Larger ships, particularly aircraft carriers, were veritable floating cities. In most, sailors lived and worked in cramped conditions, often sleeping in bunks stacked in rooms housing dozens of sailors. Senior officers received small rooms of their own. Sixty thousand American sailors lost their lives in the war.

During World War II, the Air Force was still a branch of the U.S. Army and soldiers served in ground and air crews. World War II saw the institutionalization of massive bombing campaigns against cities and industrial production. Large bombers like the B-17 Flying Fortress required pilots, navigators, bombardiers, radio operators, and four dedicated machine gunners. Airmen on bombing raids left from bases in England or Italy or from Pacific islands and endured hours of flight before approaching enemy territory. At high altitude, and without pressurized cabins, crews used oxygen tanks to breathe and on-board temperatures plummeted. Once in enemy airspace, crews confronted enemy fighters and anti-aircraft flak from the ground. While fighter pilots flew as escorts, the Air Corps suffered heavy casualties. Tens of thousands of airmen lost their lives.

On the ground, conditions varied. Soldiers in Europe endured freezing winters, impenetrable French hedgerows, Italian mountain ranges, and dense forests. Germans fought with a Western mentality familiar to Americans. Soldiers in the Pacific endured heat and humidity, monsoons, jungles, and tropical diseases. And they confronted an unfamiliar foe. Americans, for instance, could understand surrender as prudent; many Japanese soldiers saw it as cowardice. What Americans saw as a fanatical waste of life, the Japanese saw as brave and honorable. Atrocities flourished in the Pacific at a level unmatched in Europe.

Economies win wars no less than militaries. The war converted American factories to wartime production, reawakened Americans' economic might, armed Allied belligerents and the American armed forces, effectively pulled America out of the Great Depression, and ushered in an era of unparalleled economic prosperity.

Roosevelt's New Deal had ameliorated the worst of the Depression, but the economy still limped its way forward into the 1930s. But then Europe fell into war, and, despite its isolationism, Americans were glad to sell the Allies arms and supplies. And then Pearl Harbor changed everything. The United States drafted the economy into war service. The "sleeping giant" mobilized its unrivaled economic capacity to wage worldwide war. Governmental entities such as the War Production Board and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion managed economic production for the war effort and economic output exploded. An economy that was unable to provide work for a quarter of the workforce less than a decade earlier now struggled to fill vacant positions.

Government spending during the four years of war doubled all federal spending in all of American history up to that point. The budget deficit soared, but, just as Depression-era economists had counseled, the government's massive intervention annihilated unemployment and propelled growth. The economy that came out of the war looked nothing like the one that had begun it.

Military production came at the expense of the civilian consumer economy. Appliance and automobile manufacturers converted their plants to produce weapons and vehicles. Consumer choice was foreclosed. Every American received rationing cards and, legally, goods such as gasoline, coffee, meat, cheese, butter, processed food, firewood, and sugar could not be purchased without them. The housing industry was shut down, and the cities became overcrowded.

But the wartime economy boomed. The Roosevelt administration urged citizens to save their earnings or buy war bonds to prevent inflation. Bond drives were held nationally and headlined by Hollywood celebrities. Such drives were hugely successful. They not only funded much of the war effort, they helped tame inflation as well. So too did tax rates. The federal government raised income taxes and boosted the top marginal tax rate to 94 percent.

With the economy booming and twenty million American workers placed into military service, unemployment virtually disappeared. And yet limits remained. Many defense contractors still refused to hire black workers. A. Philip Randolph in 1941 threatened to lead a march on Washington in protest, compelling Roosevelt to issue Executive Order Number 8802, the Fair Employment Practice in Defense Industries Act, which established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to end racial discrimination in the federal government and the defense industry.

During the war, more and more African Americans continued to leave the agrarian South for the industrial North. And as more and more men joined the military, and more and more positions went unfilled, women joined the workforce en masse. Other American producers looked outside the United States, southward, to Mexico, to fill its labor force. Between 1942 and 1964, the United States contracted thousands of Mexican nationals to work in American agriculture and railroads in the Bracero Program. Jointly administered by the State Department, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Justice, the binational agreement secured five million contracts across twenty-four states.

With factory work proliferating across the country and agricultural labor experiencing severe labor shortages, the presidents of Mexico and the United States signed an agreement in July 1942 to bring the first group of legally contracted workers to California. Discriminatory policies toward people of Mexican descent prevented bracero contracts in Texas until 1947. The Bracero Program survived the war, enshrined in law until the 1960s, when the United States liberalized its immigration laws. Though braceros suffered exploitative labor conditions, for the men who participated the program was a mixed blessing. Interviews with ex-braceros captured the complexity. "They would call us pigs . . . they didn't have to treat us that way," one said of his employers, while another said, "For me it was a blessing, the United States was a blessing . . . it is a nation I fell in love with because of the excess work and good pay." After the exodus of Mexican migrants during the Depression, the program helped reestablish Mexican migration, institutionalized migrant farm work across much of the country, and further planted a Mexican presence in the southern and western United States.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration had encouraged all able-bodied American women to help the war effort. He considered the role of women in the war critical for American victory, and the public expected women to assume various functions to free men for active military service. While most women opted to remain at home or volunteer with charitable organizations, many went to work or donned a military uniform.

World War II brought unprecedented labor opportunities for American women. Industrial labor, an occupational sphere dominated by men, shifted in part to women for the duration of wartime mobilization. Women applied for jobs in converted munitions factories. The iconic illustrated image of Rosie the Riveter, a muscular woman dressed in coveralls with her hair in a kerchief and inscribed with the phrase We Can Do It!, came to stand for female factory labor during the war. But women also worked in various auxiliary positions for the government. Although such jobs were often traditionally gendered female, over a million administrative jobs at the local, state, and national levels were transferred from men to women for the duration of the war.

For women who elected not to work, many volunteer opportunities presented themselves. The American Red Cross, the largest charitable organization in the nation, encouraged women to volunteer with local city chapters. Millions of women organized community social events for families, packed and shipped almost half a million tons of medical supplies overseas, and prepared twenty-seven million care packages of nonperishable items for American and other Allied prisoners of war. The American Red Cross further required all female volunteers to certify as nurse's aides, providing an extra benefit and work opportunity for hospital staffs that suffered severe personnel losses. Other charity organizations, such as church and synagogue affiliates, benevolent associations, and social club auxiliaries, gave women further outlets for volunteer work.

Military service was another option for women who wanted to join the war effort. Over 350,000 women served in several all-female units of the military branches. The Army and Navy Nurse Corps Reserves, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, the Navy's Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, the Coast Guard's SPARs (named for the Coast Guard motto, Semper Paratus, "Always Ready"), and Marine Corps units gave women the opportunity to serve as either commissioned officers or enlisted members at military bases at home and abroad. The Nurse Corps Reserves alone commissioned 105,000 army and navy nurses recruited by the American Red Cross. Military nurses worked at base hospitals, mobile medical units, and onboard hospital "mercy" ships.

Jim Crow segregation in both the civilian and military sectors remained a problem for black women who wanted to join the war effort. Even after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 in 1941, supervisors who hired black women still often relegated them to the most menial tasks on factory floors. Segregation was further upheld in factory lunchrooms, and many black women were forced to work at night to keep them separate from whites. In the military, only the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and the Nurse Corps Reserves accepted black women for active service, and the army set a limited quota of 10 percent of total end strength for black female officers and enlisted women and segregated black units on active duty. The American Red Cross, meanwhile, recruited only four hundred black nurses for the Army and Navy Nurse Corps Reserves, and black army and navy nurses worked in segregated military hospitals on bases stateside and overseas.

And for all of the postwar celebration of Rosie the Riveter, after the war ended the men returned and most women voluntarily left the workforce or lost their jobs. Meanwhile, former military women faced a litany of obstacles in obtaining veteran's benefits during their transition to civilian life. The nation that beckoned the call for assistance to millions of women during the four-year crisis hardly stood ready to accommodate their postwar needs and demands.

World War II affected nearly every aspect of life in the United States, and America's racial relationships were not immune. African Americans, Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Jews, and Japanese Americans were profoundly impacted.

In early 1941, months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the largest black trade union in the nation, made headlines by threatening President Roosevelt with a march on Washington, D.C. In this "crisis of democracy," Randolph said, defense industries refused to hire African Americans and the armed forces remained segregated. In exchange for Randolph calling off the march, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, banning racial and religious discrimination in defense industries and establishing the FEPC to monitor defense industry hiring practices. While the armed forces remained segregated throughout the war, and the FEPC had limited influence, the order showed that the federal government could stand against discrimination. The black workforce in defense industries rose from 3 percent in 1942 to 9 percent in 1945.

More than one million African Americans fought in the war. Most blacks served in segregated, noncombat units led by white officers. Some gains were made, however. The number of black officers increased from five in 1940 to over seven thousand in 1945. The all-black pilot squadrons, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, completed more than 1,500 missions, escorted heavy bombers into Germany, and earned several hundred merits and medals. Many bomber crews specifically requested the Red Tail Angels as escorts. And near the end of the war, the army and navy began integrating some of their units and facilities, before the U.S. government finally ordered the full integration of its armed forces in 1948.

While black Americans served in the armed forces (though they were segregated), on the home front they became riveters and welders, rationed food and gasoline, and bought victory bonds. But many black Americans saw the war as an opportunity not only to serve their country but to improve it. The Pittsburgh Courier, a leading black newspaper, spearheaded the Double V campaign. It called on African Americans to fight two wars: the war against Nazism and fascism abroad and the war against racial inequality at home. To achieve victory, to achieve "real democracy," the Courier encouraged its readers to enlist in the armed forces, volunteer on the home front, and fight against racial segregation and discrimination.

During the war, membership in the NAACP jumped tenfold, from fifty thousand to five hundred thousand. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was formed in 1942 and spearheaded the method of nonviolent direct action to achieve desegregation. Between 1940 and 1950, some 1.5 million southern blacks, the largest number of any decade since the beginning of the Great Migration, also indirectly demonstrated their opposition to racism and violence by migrating out of the Jim Crow South to the North. But transitions were not easy. Racial tensions erupted in 1943 in a series of riots in cities such as Mobile, Beaumont, and Harlem. The bloodiest race riot occurred in Detroit and resulted in the death of twenty-five blacks and nine whites. Still, the war ignited in African Americans an urgency for equality that they would carry with them into the subsequent years.

Many Americans had to navigate American prejudice, and America's entry into the war left foreign nationals from the belligerent nations in a precarious position. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) targeted many on suspicions of disloyalty for detainment, hearings, and possible internment under the Alien Enemy Act. Those who received an order for internment were sent to government camps secured by barbed wire and armed guards. Such internments were supposed to be for cause. Then, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any persons from designated "exclusion zones"-which ultimately covered nearly a third of the country-at the discretion of military commanders. Thirty thousand Japanese Americans fought for the United States in World War II, but wartime anti-Japanese sentiment built on historical prejudices, and under the order, people of Japanese descent, both immigrants and American citizens, were detained and placed under the custody of the War Relocation Authority, the civil agency that supervised their relocation to internment camps. They lost their homes and jobs. Over ten thousand German nationals and a smaller number of Italian nationals were interned at various times in the United States during World War II, but American policies disproportionately targeted Japanese-descended populations, and individuals did not receive personalized reviews prior to their internment. This policy of mass exclusion and detention affected over 110,000 Japanese and Japanese-descended individuals. Seventy thousand were American citizens.

In its 1982 report, Personal Justice Denied, the congressionally appointed Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concluded that "the broad historical causes" shaping the relocation program were "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." Although the exclusion orders were found to have been constitutionally permissible under the vagaries of national security, they were later judged, even by the military and judicial leaders of the time, to have been a grave injustice against people of Japanese descent. In 1988, President Reagan signed a law that formally apologized for internment and provided reparations to surviving internees.

But if actions taken during war would later prove repugnant, so too could inaction. As the Allies pushed into Germany and Poland, they uncovered the full extent of Hitler's genocidal atrocities. The Allies liberated massive camp systems set up for the imprisonment, forced labor, and extermination of all those deemed racially, ideologically, or biologically "unfit" by Nazi Germany. But the Holocaust-the systematic murder of eleven million civilians, including six million Jews-had been under way for years. How did America respond?

Initially, American officials expressed little official concern for Nazi persecutions. At the first signs of trouble in the 1930s, the State Department and most U.S. embassies did relatively little to aid European Jews. Roosevelt publicly spoke out against the persecution and even withdrew the U.S. ambassador to Germany after Kristallnacht. He pushed for the 1938 Evian Conference in France, in which international leaders discussed the Jewish refugee problem and worked to expand Jewish immigration quotas by tens of thousands of people per year. But the conference came to nothing, and the United States turned away countless Jewish refugees who requested asylum in the United States.

In 1939, the German ship St. Louis carried over nine hundred Jewish refugees. They could not find a country that would take them. The passengers could not receive visas under the U.S. quota system. A State Department wire to one passenger read that all must "await their turns on the waiting list and qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States." The ship cabled the president for special privilege, but the president said nothing. The ship was forced to return to Europe. Hundreds of the St. Louis 's passengers would perish in the Holocaust.

Anti-Semitism still permeated the United States. Even if Roosevelt wanted to do more-it's difficult to trace his own thoughts and personal views-he judged the political price for increasing immigration quotas as too high. In 1938 and 1939, the U.S. Congress debated the Wagner-Rogers Bill, an act to allow twenty thousand German-Jewish children into the United States. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt endorsed the measure, but the president remained publicly silent. The bill was opposed by roughly two thirds of the American public and was defeated. Historians speculate that Roosevelt, anxious to protect the New Deal and his rearmament programs, was unwilling to expend political capital to protect foreign groups that the American public had little interest in protecting.

Knowledge of the full extent of the Holocaust was slow in coming. When the war began, American officials, including Roosevelt, doubted initial reports of industrial death camps. But even when they conceded their existence, officials pointed to their genuinely limited options. The most plausible response was for the U.S. military was to bomb either the camps or the railroads leading to them, but those options were rejected by military and civilian officials who argued that it would do little to stop the deportations, would distract from the war effort, and could cause casualties among concentration camp prisoners. Whether bombing would have saved lives remains a hotly debated question.

Late in the war, secretary of the treasury Henry Morgenthau, himself born into a wealthy New York Jewish family, pushed through major changes in American policy. In 1944, he formed the War Refugees Board (WRB) and became a passionate advocate for Jewish refugees. The WRB saved perhaps two hundred thousand Jews and twenty thousand others. Morgenthau also convinced Roosevelt to issue a public statement condemning the Nazi's persecution. But it was already 1944, and such policies were far too little, far too late.

Americans celebrated the end of the war. At home and abroad, the United States looked to create a postwar order that would guarantee global peace and domestic prosperity. Although the alliance of convenience with Stalin's Soviet Union would collapse, Americans nevertheless looked for the means to ensure postwar stability and economic security for returning veterans.

The inability of the League of Nations to stop German, Italian, and Japanese aggressions caused many to question whether any global organization or agreements could ever ensure world peace. This included Franklin Roosevelt, who, as Woodrow Wilson's undersecretary of the navy, witnessed the rejection of this idea by both the American people and the Senate. In 1941, Roosevelt believed that postwar security could be maintained by an informal agreement between what he termed the Four Policemen-the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China-instead of a rejuvenated League of Nations. But others, including secretary of state Cordell Hull and British prime minister Winston Churchill, disagreed and convinced Roosevelt to push for a new global organization. As the war ran its course, Roosevelt came around to the idea. And so did the American public. Pollster George Gallup noted a "profound change" in American attitudes. The United States had rejected membership in the League of Nations after World War I, and in 1937 only a third of Americans polled supported such an idea. But as war broke out in Europe, half of Americans did. America's entry into the war bolstered support, and, by 1945, with the war closing, 81 percent of Americans favored the idea.

Whatever his support, Roosevelt had long shown enthusiasm for the ideas later enshrined in the United Nations (UN) charter. In January 1941, he announced his Four Freedoms-freedom of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear-that all of the world's citizens should enjoy. That same year he signed the Atlantic Charter with Churchill, which reinforced those ideas and added the right of self-determination and promised some sort of postwar economic and political cooperation. Roosevelt first used the term united nations to describe the Allied powers, not the subsequent postwar organization. But the name stuck. At Tehran in 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill convinced Stalin to send a Soviet delegation to a conference at Dumbarton Oaks, outside Washington, D.C., in August 1944, where they agreed on the basic structure of the new organization. It would have a Security Council-the original Four Policemen, plus France-which would consult on how best to keep the peace and when to deploy the military power of the assembled nations. According to one historian, the organization demonstrated an understanding that "only the Great Powers, working together, could provide real security." But the plan was a kind of hybrid between Roosevelt's policemen idea and a global organization of equal representation. There would also be a General Assembly, made up of all nations; an International Court of Justice; and a council for economic and social matters. Dumbarton Oaks was a mixed success-the Soviets especially expressed concern over how the Security Council would work-but the powers agreed to meet again in San Francisco between April and June 1945 for further negotiations. There, on June 26, 1945, fifty nations signed the UN charter.

Anticipating victory in World War II, leaders not only looked to the postwar global order, they looked to the fate of returning American servicemen. American politicians and interest groups sought to avoid another economic depression-the economy had tanked after World War I-by gradually easing returning veterans back into the civilian economy. The brainchild of William Atherton, the head of the American Legion, the G.I. Bill won support from progressives and conservatives alike. Passed in 1944, the G.I. Bill was a multifaceted, multibillion-dollar entitlement program that rewarded honorably discharged veterans with numerous benefits.

Faced with the prospect of over fifteen million members of the armed services (including approximately 350,000 women) suddenly returning to civilian life, the G.I. Bill offered a bevy of inducements to slow their influx into the civilian workforce as well as reward their service with public benefits. The legislation offered a year's worth of unemployment benefits for veterans unable to secure work. About half of American veterans (eight million) received $4 billion in unemployment benefits over the life of the bill. The G.I. Bill also made postsecondary education a reality for many. The Veterans Administration (VA) paid the lion's share of educational expenses, including tuition, fees, supplies, and even stipends for living expenses. The G.I. Bill sparked a boom in higher education. Enrollments at accredited colleges, universities, and technical and professional schools spiked, rising from 1.5 million in 1940 to 3.6 million in 1960. The VA disbursed over $14 billon in educational aid in just over a decade. Furthermore, the bill encouraged home ownership. Roughly 40 percent of Americans owned homes in 1945, but that figure climbed to 60 percent a decade after the close of the war. Because the bill did away with down payment requirements, veterans could obtain home loans for as little as $1 down. Close to four million veterans purchased homes through the G.I. Bill, sparking a construction bonanza that fueled postwar growth. In addition, the VA also helped nearly two hundred thousand veterans secure farms and offered thousands more guaranteed financing for small businesses.

Not all Americans, however, benefited equally from the G.I. Bill. Indirectly, since the military limited the number of female personnel, men qualified for the bill's benefits in far higher numbers. Colleges also limited the number of female applicants to guarantee space for male veterans. African Americans, too, faced discrimination. Segregation forced black veterans into overcrowded "historically black colleges" that had to turn away close to twenty thousand applicants. Meanwhile, residential segregation limited black home ownership in various neighborhoods, denying black homeowners the equity and investment that would come with home ownership. There were other limits and other disadvantaged groups. Veterans accused of homosexuality, for instance, were similarly unable to claim GI benefits.

The effects of the G.I. Bill were significant and long-lasting. It helped sustain the great postwar economic boom and, even if many could not attain it, it nevertheless established the hallmarks of American middle class life.

The United States entered the war in a crippling economic depression and exited at the beginning of an unparalleled economic boom. The war had been won, the United States was stronger than ever, and Americans looked forward to a prosperous future. And yet new problems loomed. Stalin's Soviet Union and the proliferation of nuclear weapons would disrupt postwar dreams of global harmony. Meanwhile, Americans who had fought a war for global democracy would find that very democracy eradicated around the world in reestablished colonial regimes and at home in segregation and injustice. The war had unleashed powerful forces that would reshape the United States at home and abroad.
Charles A. Lindbergh, "America First" (1941) Charles Lindbergh won international fame in 1927 after completing the first non-stop, solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. As Hitler's armies marched across the European continent, many Americans began to imagine American participation in the war. Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee, advocating "America First," championed American isolationism. The Atlantic Charter (1941) The leaders of the United States and United Kingdom signed the Atlantic Charter in August 1941. The short document neatly outlined an idealized vision for political and economic order of the postwar world. FDR, Executive Order No. 9066 (1942) During World War II, the federal government removed over 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent (both foreign-born "issei" and native-born "nisei") from the West Coast and interned in camps. President Roosevelt authorized the internments with his Executive Order No. 9066, issued on February 19, 1942. Harry Truman Announcing the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima (1945) On August 6, 1945, Harry Truman disclosed to the American public that the United States had detonated an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945) Vietnam, which had been colonized by the French and then by the Japanese, declared their independence from colonial rule-particularly the re-imposition of a French colonial regime-in the aftermath of Japan's defeat in World War II. Proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in September 1945, Vietnam's Declaration of Independence reflected back the early promises of the Allies in World War II and even borrowed directly from the American Declaration of Independence. Tuskegee Airmen (1941) The Tuskegee Airmen stand at attention as Major James A. Ellison returns the salute of Mac Ross, one of the first graduates of the Tuskegee cadets. The Tuskegee Airmen who continued a tradition of African American military service while honorably serving a country that still considered them second-class citizens. World War II Recruitment Posters (1942 & 1943) This pair of US Military recruiting posters demonstrates the way that two branches of the military-the Marines and the Women's Army Corps-borrowed techniques from advertising professionals to "sell" a romantic vision of war to Americans. These two images take different strategies: one shows Marines at war in a lush jungle, reminding viewers that the war was taking place in exotic lands, the other depicted women taking on new jobs as a patriotic duty.
This chapter was edited by Joseph Locke, with content contributions by Mary Beth Chopas, Andrew David, Ashton Ellett, Paula Fortier, Joseph Locke, Jennifer Mandel, Valerie Martinez, Ryan Menath, Chris Thomas.

Recommended citation: Mary Beth Chopas et al., "World War II," Joseph Locke, ed., in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).

Recommended Reading

Adams, Michael. The Best War Ever: America and World War II. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Anderson, Karen. Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women During WWII. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981.

Black, Gregory D. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profit and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies. New York: Free Press, 1987.

Blum, John Morton. V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II. New York: Marine Books, 1976.

Borgwardt, Elizabeth. A New Deal for the World: America's Vision for Human Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Daniels, Roger. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.

Dower, John. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon, 1993.

Honey, Maureen. Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda During World War II. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.

Hooks, Gregory Michael. Forging the Military-Industrial Complex: World War II's Battle of the Potomac. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1991.

Kaminski, Theresa. Angels of the Underground: The American Women Who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Keegan, John. The Second World War. New York: Viking, 1990.

Kennedy, David. Freedom from Fear: America in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Leonard, Kevin Allen. The Battle for Los Angeles: Racial Ideology and World War II. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.

Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Malloy, Sean L. Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008.

Meyer, Leisa D. Creating G.I. Jane: The Regulation of Sexuality and Sexual Behavior in the Women's Army Corps During WWII. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.

Murray, Alice Yang. Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.

O'Neill, William L. A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Russell, Jan Jarboe. The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II. New York: Scribner, 2015.

Schulman, Bruce J. From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Sparrow, James T. Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Random House, 1985

Takaki, Ronald T. Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II. New York: Little, Brown, 2000.

Wynn, Neil A. The African American Experience During World War II. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010.

Notes

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The 1930s and 1940s were trying times. A global economic crisis gave way to a global war that became the deadliest and most destructive in human history. Perhaps eighty million individuals lost their lives during World War II. The war saw industrialized genocide and nearly threatened the eradication of an entire people.

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Isolationism

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Printable Version In 1936, eight Princeton undergraduates formed the Veterans of Future Wars (VFW). The organization demanded a bonus of $1,000 for every man between the ages of 18 and 36--payable immediately so that they could enjoy it before being forced to fight the "next war." A women's auxiliary, the Future Gold Star Mothers, demanded government pensions for women so that they could afford to visit their son's graves in Europe.

World War I left the public suspicious of foreign crusades. Americans wanted to retreat from foreign affairs. "The people have had all the war, all the taxation, and all the military service they want," declared President Calvin Coolidge in 1925. During the 1920s, the United States tried to promote world peace through diplomatic means.

In 1921, representatives from nine Asian and European nations met in Washington to discuss ways to ease tensions in the Pacific. The conference resulted in a 10-year moratorium on the construction of battleships and an agreement that for every five naval vessels owned by the United States or Britain, Japan could have three ships, and France and Italy could own one and three-fourths ships.

In 1928, the French foreign minister, Aristide Briand, and Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg attempted to outlaw war. The Kellogg-Briand Pact, which was eventually signed by 62 nations, renounced war as an instrument for resolving international disputes. The Kellogg-Briand Pact lacked an enforcement mechanism. Cynics said the treaty had all the legal force of an "international kiss."

Isolationism During the 1930s

During the Great Depression isolationist sentiment surged. In 1935, some 150,000 college students participated in a nationwide Student Strike for Peace, and half a million signed pledges saying that they would refuse to serve in the event of war. A public opinion poll indicated that 39 percent of college students would refuse to participate in any war, even if the country was invaded.

Anti-war sentiment was not confined to undergraduates. Disillusionment over World War I fed opposition to foreign entanglements. "We didn't win a thing we set out for in the last war," said Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota. "We merely succeeded, with tremendous loss of life, to make secure the loans of private bankers to the Allies." The overwhelming majority of Americans agreed; an opinion poll in 1935 found that 70 percent of Americans believed that intervention in World War I had been a mistake.

Isolationist ideas spread through American popular culture during the mid-1930s. The Book of the Month Club featured a volume titled Merchants of Death, which contended that the United States had been drawn into the European war by international arms manufacturers who had deliberately fomented conflict in order to market their products. From 1934 to 1936, a congressional committee, chaired by Senator Nye, investigated charges that false Allied propaganda and unscrupulous Wall Street bankers had dragged Americans into the European war. In April 1935--the 18th anniversary of American entry into World War I--50,000 veterans held a peace march in Washington, D.C.

Between 1935 and 1937, Congress passed three separate neutrality laws that clamped an embargo on arms sales to belligerents, forbade American ships from entering war zones and prohibited them from being armed, and barred Americans from traveling on belligerent ships. Clearly, Congress was determined not to repeat what it regarded as the mistakes that had plunged the United States into World War I.

By 1938, however, pacifist sentiment was fading. A rapidly modernizing Japan was seeking to acquire raw materials and territory on the Asian mainland; a revived Germany was rebuilding its military power and acquiring land bloodlessly on its eastern borders; and Italy was trying to restore Roman glory through military might.

Copyright 2019 Digital History

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Printable Version In 1936, eight Princeton undergraduates formed the Veterans of Future Wars (VFW). The organization demanded a bonus of $1,000 for every man between the ages of 18 and 36--payable immediately so that they could enjoy it before being forced to fight the "next war."