Chapter 41

WWII

A war fought from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers — Germany, Italy, and Japan — and the Allies, including France and Britain, and later the Soviet Union and the United States. The instability created in Europe by the First World War (1914-18) set the stage for another international conflict—World War II—which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating. Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II. Over the next six years, the conflict would take more lives and destroy more land and property around the globe than any previous war. Among the estimated 45-60 million people killed were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler's diabolical "Final Solution," now known as the Holocaust.

Four Freedoms Speech

On January 6, 1941, a speech by FDR that outlined the four principles of freedom (speech, religion, from want, and from fear) This helped inspire Americans into patriotism. Roosevelt insisted that people in all nations of the world shared Americans' entitlement to four freedoms: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

Rosie the Riveter

Rosie the Riveter was the star of a campaign aimed at recruiting female workers for defense industries during World War II, and she became perhaps the most iconic image of working women. American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during the war, as widespread male enlistment left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home.

Korematsu v. US

1944 - Supreme Court case where the Supreme Court upheld the order providing for the relocation of Japanese Americans. It was not until 1988 that Congress formally apologized and agreed to pay $20,000 to each survivor

Executive Order 9066

2/19/42; 112,000 Japanese-Americans forced into camps causing loss of homes & businesses, 600K more renounced citizenship; demonstrated fear of Japanese invasion. On the West Coast, long-standing racism against Japanese Americans, motivated in part by jealousy over their commercial success, erupted after Pearl Harbor into furious demands to remove them en masse to relocation camps for the duration of the war. Japanese immigrants and their descendants, regardless of American citizenship status or length of residence, were systematically rounded up and placed in detention centers. Evacuees, as they were sometimes called, could take only as many possessions as they could carry and were housed in crude, cramped quarters. In the western states, camps on remote and barren sites such as Manzanar and Tule Lake housed thousands of families whose lives were interrupted and in some cases destroyed by Executive Order 9066. Many lost businesses, farms and loved ones as a result.

Pearl Harbor

7:50-10:00 AM, December 7, 1941 - Surprise attack by the Japanese on the main U.S. Pacific Fleet harbored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii destroyed 18 U.S. ships and 200 aircraft. American losses were 3000, Japanese losses less than 100. In response, the U.S. declared war on Japan and Germany, entering World War II.

Appeasement

During WW2, a policy of making concessions to an aggressor in the hopes of avoiding war. Associated with Neville Chamberlain's policy of making concessions to Adolf Hitler. It led to Nazi Germany and Hitler to take power and take over other nations. It was what made Germany so powerful and what led to the most deaths during this war.

D-Day

During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany's control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.

Was war between the United States and Japan inevitable? Why or why not?

I think that war was inevitable between the US and Japan in WWII. It was Japan's desire to control Asia that fueled their thirst for conquest. They had the desire of being the industrial power in Asia. However, they lacked the raw materials to do so. They had fought a war against Russia and prevailed so the only challenge and opponent they had in the Pacific was the US. Other nations like Great Britain, and France had colonies in that region already. It was the United States that was seen as the existential threat to Japan and her territorial conquest ideas. Japan knew that they would draw the ire of the allies when the started their island hopping campaign. While yes, they could have stopped and not directly attacked the US, that was not their mindset. The debate was strong within Japanese government and military about attacking the US and one line of reasoning used was that the US was going to become involved in the war in Europe which meant that they would be obliged to help British and French forces in the Pacific. Also, because of the growing number of Americans that were volunteering to fight in China the Japanese thought that they would have to face the US at some point. Therefore, they chose to dictate the terms by attacking Pearl Harbor.

Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway was an epic clash between the U.S. Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that played out six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.

Lend-Lease Act

The Lend-Lease Act, approved by Congress in March 1941, had given President Roosevelt virtually unlimited authority to direct material aid such as ammunition, tanks, airplanes, trucks, and food to the war effort in Europe without violating the nation's official position of neutrality

Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic weapon during World War II. The controversial creation and eventual use of the atomic bomb engaged some of the world's leading scientific minds, as well as the U.S. military—and most of the work was done in Los Alamos, New Mexico, not the borough of New York City for which it was originally named. The Manhattan Project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s—and that Adolf Hitler was prepared to use it.

Could the United States have prevented the outbreak of World War II?

The US could have prevented the outbreak of World War II if the government did not listen to the isolationists. This is because the US could have openly pledged its support to the Western Democracies who might have faced down Hitler. However, the mood of the American people in the late 1930s was completely against such a position on the part of its government and the pople of the United States were totally against getting involved in the affairs of Europe after WWI. If the United States had been more forceful in its opposition to Hitler after his rise to power, it is unlikely Hitler would have risked remilitarizing the Rhineland or annexing Austria. Above all, had it supported Britain and France in 1938 at Munich, the emboldened Western powers backed by the most powerful nation on earth would have certainly adopted a hardline stance and blocked Hitler's move to annex Czechoslovakia. That would have been the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

How important was the home front in the United States' victory in World War II?

The United States home front during World War II supported the war effort in many ways, including a wide range of volunteer efforts and submitting to government-managed rationing and price controls. There was a general feeling of agreement that the sacrifices were for the national good during the war. The Home Front saw a massive change in the role of women, and rationing for instance. Women had more important jobs and were the ones working to sustain their loved ones so the family dynamic changed a lot and with the rationing, many Americans grew their own food and cut back what they ate so they could help send food to the military.

Was the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II justified or an unfortunate setback for democracy?

The treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II was not justified and it was actually an unfortunate setback for democracy because these people were citizens of the United States and they were civilians, they had nothing to do with the war and should have not being reprehended or treated differently because they had Japanese blood. Many people will say that nomenclature and fear are the main factors that made them act this way against the Japanese, however, being scared is not a good excuse to steal and put people down for.