Transcript Ch.17, Sec.1- The Rise of Dictators

Ch.17, Sec.1- The Rise of Dictators
Stalin’s Soviet Union
• Under totalitarian rule, a government exerts total
control over a nation. It dominates every aspect
of life, using terror to suppress individual rights
and silence all forms of opposition.
• Hitler and Italy’s Benito Mussolini governed by a
philosophy called fascism, which emphasizes
the importance of the nation or an ethnic group
and the supreme authority of the leader.
Stalin’s Economic Plan
• Stalin wanted to combine all the small farms into
huge collective farms owned by the state. If a
farmer resisted, Stalin would punish them by
confiscating much or all the food they produced,
leading to millions of people dying from
starvation. Because Stalin poured all the
government’s money and labor into iron, steel,
oil, and coal instead of housing, clothing, and
consumer goods, the Soviet people had severe
shortages of essential products.
Stalin’s Reign of Terror
• Stalin completed political domination through a
series of purges, or a process of removing
enemies and undesirable individuals from
power. He eliminated his opponents and anyone
else he believed to be a threat. The Great Purge
began in 1934 with a series of trials in which
everyone was guilty. By 1939, his agents had
arrested more than 7 million people, of which 1
million was executed and millions more ended
up in forced labor camps. Most of these people
were innocent and had done nothing wrong.
Fascism in Italy
• Mussolini called himself Il Duce, and he
relied on gangs of Fascist thugs called
Blackshirts to terrorize and bring under
control those who oppose him. Under
Mussolini, they ended elections, outlawed
all other political parties, and established a
dictatorship.
The Nazi Party
• In 1919, Hitler joined a small political group that became
the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi. In
November 1923, Hitler tried to overthrow the government
with about 3,000 followers. He was captured and
sentenced to 5 years in prison and only had to serve 9
months. While in prison, Hitler began writing an
autobiography titled Mein Kampf, or My Struggle. In it, he
discussed the Nazi philosophy, his views of Germany’s
problems (Jews), and his plan for the nation. He also
called for purifying the “Aryan race” (blond, blue-eyed
Germans) by removing the groups he considered
undesirable. After the Great Depression hit in the early
1930s, Hitler promised to stabilize the country, rebuild
the economy, and restore the empire.
Hitler becomes Chancellor
• In 1932, the Nazi party became the largest political party
in Germany, and Hitler came in second in the
presidential elections. The new president, Paul von
Hindenburg, made Hitler chancellor, or head of the
German government.
• Hitler would then move to end freedom of speech and
press, and he used thousands of Nazi thugs called storm
troopers or Brownshirts, that waged violent campaigns
that silenced those who opposed Hitler.
• The Reichstag building burned down in a suspicious fire
which Hitler blamed the Communist and had a bill
passed to make him a dictator. When the president died
in August 1934, Hitler became chancellor and president
and gave himself the title Der Fuhrer.
Germany Rearms
• Hitler did get them out of the depression by 1936, but he
was also secretly rearming the military which went
against the Versailles Treaty. Hitler believed for
Germany to be a world power, they needed more
lebensraum, or living space, so he wanted to conquer
eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
• On March 7, 1936, German troops entered the
Rhineland, a region in western Germany, which
specifically broke the Versailles Treaty. He realized the
Allies didn’t do anything when they found out he had
rearmed the military then he believed they wouldn’t do
anything this time either. Also in 1936, Germany, Japan,
and Italy combined forces and called themselves the
Axis Powers.
Germany Expands
• Hitler now sent troops into Austria and
demanded the Sudetenland in western
Czechoslovakia. Neville Chamberlin, the
British prime minister, pursued a policy of
appeasement, or giving in to his demands
to keep peace.
The Spanish Civil War
• The Republicans fought a Civil War with
the Nationalist, who were led by Francisco
Franco. The Nationalist would go on to win
this war with the help of the Germans and
the Italians.
Sec.2- Europe Goes to War
Invasion of Poland
• When Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia,
Britain and France warned him any further
German expansion would risk war. Hitler
did not believe them, and would go on to
invade Poland. But first, he wanted to
make a peace agreement with the Soviet
Union because he did not want to fight a
war on two fronts.
Hitler’s Pact with Stalin
• Stalin did not believe Hitler wanted to
conquer the Soviet Union so he signed a
10-year Nonaggression Pact. One week
later on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded
Poland. On September 3, Britain and
France declared war on Germany.
Lightning War
• Hitler would use a new fighting style he
balled blitzkrieg, or lightning war. This
style of fighting included fast concentrated
land and air attacks. First the planes would
bomb the area, then the tanks would come
in, then the infantry. Using this tactic,
Germany would take Poland in less than a
month. The Soviets were secretly helping
the Germans, so they took eastern
Poland.
War in the West
• The British and French feared losing a
huge amount of troops so they held back
from attacking Germany. The Americans
called this the “phony war”. The Germans
called it the sitzkrieg, or sitting war. They
both sat along the Maginot Line waiting for
the other one to attack.
Germany Attacks
• Germany ended the sitzkrieg on April 9,
1940, when they attacked Denmark and
Norway. Then on May 10, they launched a
blitzkrieg on the Netherlands, Belgium,
and Luxembourg. Luxembourg
surrendered in a day, Netherlands in 5
days, and Belgium in less than 3 weeks.
• The German air force was called the
Luftwaffe.
The Fall of France
• On June 10, the French government
abandoned Paris. June 14, German troops
entered Paris, and on June 22, France
and 1.5 million soldiers surrendered.
• Free France, a government in exile in
London, continued in the war, and they
were led by Charles de Gaulle. The Allies
now only consisted of Great Britain.
Relentless Attack
• In August 1940, Hitler used his Luftwaffe
to launch an air attack on Britain called the
Battle of Britain. In early September, Hitler
ordered massive bombing raids to try and
get the British to surrender, but Winston
Churchill said Britain would never
surrender.
Sec.3- Japan Builds an Empire
The Manchurian Incident
• In February 1932, the Japanese army
seized all of Manchuria which shocked
most world leaders and most Japanese.
This came to be known as the Manchurian
Incident. The U.N. ordered Japan to leave
Manchuria, so Japan left the U.N. Japan
would go on to assassinate the prime
minister and several government officials
in Manchuria.
War Against China
• In July 1937, Japan began invading China.
The Chinese Nationalist army was led by
General Jiang Jieshi, but Japan’s
weapons were superior to China’s. By
1939, due to China’s large army, the war
reached a stalemate.
Sec.4- From Isolationism to War
The United States Chooses
Neutrality
• Congress passed the Neutrality Acts, which the
first in 1935 banned the U.S. from providing
weapons to nations at war. In the second in
1936, it banned loans to such nations. The third,
in 1937, permitted trade with fighting countries in
nonmilitary goods as long as those nations paid
cash and transported the cargo themselves. This
was called cash and carry.
• Roosevelt asked Congress to revise the acts, so
they repealed the arms embargo and provided
Britain and France with the weapons they
needed.
Lend-Lease
• Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in
March 1941, authorizing the president to
aid any nation whose defense he believed
was vital to American security. The U.S.
immediately began sending aid to Britain
and later to the Soviet Union. By the end
of the war, the U.S. had loaned or given
away more than $49 billion worth of aid to
about 40 nations.
Final Weeks of Peace
• In July 1940, Roosevelt began limiting what
Japan could buy from the U.S. In September, he
ended the sales of scrap iron and steel. Then he
cut off all oil shipments. A militant army took
over power in Japan led by General Tojo Hideki,
who supported war with the U.S. in October
1941. By November 27, due to cracking a
Japanese code, the American military leaders
knew the Japanese aircraft carriers were on the
move in the Pacific and preparing for an attack,
but they didn’t know where. Their target was
Pearl Harbor.
The Attack
• On December 7, 1941, at about 7:00 A.M. they
noticed a large blip on the radar. The only officer
on duty that morning thought it was American
planes. Less than 1 hour later, there were 180
Japanese planes there. By 9:45, the attack was
over. In less than 2 hours, about 2,400
Americans were killed and nearly 1,200
wounded. Nearly 200 American war planes were
damaged or destroyed, and 18 warships had
been sunk or heavily damaged, including 8 of
the fleet’s 9 battleships. Japan lost only 29
planes.
United States Declares War
• Roosevelt called that day “A day which will
live in infamy”, and asked Congress to
declare war on Japan the next day. Only 1
member of Congress, Jeannette Rankin of
Montana, voted against declaring war. On
December 11, Germany and Italy declared
war on the U.S.
Ch.18, Sec.1- Mobilization
Mobilizing the Armed Forces
• In September 1940, Congress authorized
the first peacetime draft in the nation’s
history. The Selective Training and
Service Act required all males aged 21 to
36 to register for military service, and a
limited number of men was selected from
this pool to serve a year in the army.
The GI War
• More than 16 million Americans served as
soldiers, sailors, and aviators in the war.
They called themselves GIs, which stood
for “Government Issue”.
Diversity in the Armed Forces
• More than 300,000 Mexican Americans served in the
military, and about 25,000 Native Americans also did as
well. A group of Navajos developed a secret code that
was based on their language and the enemy could not
break it. The marines recruited more than 400 Navajos
to serve as radio operators. They were known as “code
talkers”.
• Nearly 1 million African Americans joined the military, but
officials limited them to supporting roles. By 1942, the
military authorities gave them the opportunity to fight
because they were losing a lot of men. They still fought
in separate units. The Tuskegee Airmen was the first
African American flying unit in the U.S. military.
Women in the military
• By the end of the war, nearly 350,000
American women had volunteered for
military service. They were used in almost
every area except combat. Most worked
as clerks, typists, airfield control tower
operators, mechanics, photographers, and
drivers.
Sec.2- Retaking Europe
The North Africa Campaign
• Starting in August 1940, the British army had
successfully battled Italian troops in North Africa.
Then in February 1941, Hitler sent General
Erwin Rommel, nicknamed “Desert Fox”, and a
German division to reinforce the Italians. Under
Rommel’s leadership, they won several battles.
The British army, under the command of
General Bernard Montgomery, defeated
Rommel’s forces in November 1942 at El
Alamein. The Germans retreated west.
The North Africa Campaign cont.
• A few days later, Allied troops, mainly Americans
under the command of General Dwight D.
Eisenhower, landed on the northwest coast of
North Africa. British troops continued chasing
Rommel west from Egypt, leading Hitler to send
20,000 more troops to reinforce Rommel’s army.
The Americans lost to Rommel’s army in Tunisia
in February 1943. However, by May 1943, the
Allied armies had the Axis forces trapped in
North Africa. Despite Hitler’s instructions to fight
to the death, about 240,000 Germans and
Italians surrendered.
The Invasion of Italy
• In July 1943, the U.S. Seventh Army, under the
command of General George S. Patton, invaded the
island of Sicily with British forces and prepared to move
inland. Italians then lost faith in Mussolini, and voted to
remove him from office. King Victor Emmanuel III had
him arrested, but the Germans freed him and evacuated
him to northern Italy. In September 1943, as Allied
troops threatened to overrun the south and take Rome,
Italy’s new government surrendered. The Allies would
continue to fight with German and Italian forces in Italy
until April 1945, when the Germans in northern Italy
finally surrendered. That same month, Mussolini was
shot and killed by Italians as he tried to flee across the
northern Italian border.
The Germans Advance, 1941-1942
• The attack on the Soviet Union began on June
22, 1941. About 3.6 million German and other
Axis troops poured into the Soviet Union,
catching the Soviets by surprise. Since the
Soviets suffered so badly under Stalin, they at
first welcomed the Germans as liberators. That
quickly ended when Germans introduced forced
labor and began executing civilians. The Soviets
were hoping and waiting for Allied troops to
arrive but Churchill persuaded Roosevelt instead
to invade Italy.
The Battle of Stalingrad
• The cold Russian winter stopped Hitler from
being able to defeat the Soviets. In November
1942, Soviet forces launched a fierce
counterattack on the Germans in the freezing
weather and surrounded the German army in
Stalingrad with the Germans having few supplies
and no hope of escape. Hitler ordered the troops
not to surrender, and on January 31, 1943, more
than 90,000 surviving Germans surrendered. In
all, Germany lost 330,000 troops at Stalingrad.
The Battle of Stalingrad proved to be the turning
point of the war in Eastern Europe.
The Invasion of Western Europe
• George Marshall, the top American
general and FDR’s Chief of Staff, pushed
for an attack on the German forces
occupying France. In late 1943, the British
agreed to go along with his plan, codenamed Operation Overlord and
commanded by General Eisenhower.
D-Day
• Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, about
4,600 invasion craft and warships crossed the
English Channel. Ahead of them about 1,000
RAF bombers pounded German defenses at
Normandy. Also, about 23,000 airborne British
and American soldiers parachuted behind
enemy lines at night. This day, called D-Day,
was the largest landing by sea in history.
Despite the loss of a lot of men, within a week a
half million men had come ashore. By late July,
there were about 2 million Allied troops in
France.
Liberating France
• On August 25, 1944, a French division of
the U.S. First Army officially liberated
Paris. That same day, General Charles de
Gaulle arrived in the city and prepared to
take charge of the French government.
The Battle of the Bulge
• The German attack smashed into the U.S.
First Army and pushed it back, forming a
bulge in the Allied line. As a result, the
battle that followed came to be called the
Battle of the Bulge. This was the largest
battle in Western Europe during WWII and
the largest battle ever fought by the U.S.
Army. After this battle, most Nazi leaders
realized the war was lost.
Germany Surrenders
• As the Soviet army surrounded Berlin, Hitler
refused to take his generals’ advice to flee the
city. Instead, he chose to commit suicide in his
underground bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945.
A few days later, on May 8, 1945, Germany’s
remaining troops surrendered.
• When the fighting in Europe came to an end,
American soldiers rejoiced, and civilians on the
home front celebrated V-E Day (Victory in
Europe Day). The war would not officially be
over, however, until Japan surrenders.
Sec.3- The Holocaust
Persecution in Germany
• When Hitler became Germany’s leader in
1933, he made anti-Semitism the official
policy of the nation. During the Holocaust,
Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of
European Jews, about 6 million Jews, or
two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population,
was killed. Another 5-6 million people
would die in Nazi captivity.
Nazi Policies
• In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their
German citizenship, and outlawed marriage between
Jews and non-Jews. Jews were forced to give up their
businesses, a Jewish doctor or lawyer was forbidden to
serve non-Jews, and Jewish students were expelled
from public schools.
• A Jew was defined as any person who had 3 or 4 Jewish
grandparents, regardless of his or her current religion, as
well as any person who had two Jewish grandparents
and practiced the Jewish religion.
• Nazis marked Jews’ identity cards with a red letter J. The
Nazis also gave Jews new middle names-Sarah for
women and Israel for men-which appeared on all
documents. Eventually, Jews in Germany and Germanoccupied countries were forced to sew yellow stars
marked “Jew” on their clothing.
Hitler’s Police
• When Hitler first came to power, the Gestapo,
Germany’s new secret state police, was formed
to identify and pursue enemies of the Nazi
regime. Hitler also formed the SS, or
Schutzstaffel, an elite guard that developed into
the private army of the Nazi party. The duties of
the SS included guarding the concentration
camps. In these camps, Nazis held people
whom they considered undesirableCommunists, mainly Jews, homosexuals,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, and the
homeless.
Kristallnacht
• On November 9, 1938, Nazi thugs throughout
Germany and Austria looted and destroyed
Jewish stores, houses, and synagogues. This
incident became known as Kristallnacht, or Night
of the Broken Glass. Nearly every synagogue
was destroyed, and the Nazis arrested
thousands of Jews that night and shipped them
off to concentration camps. The Jews also had
to pay a fine for the damage of Kristallnacht.
After that night, German’s remaining Jews
sought any means necessary to leave the
country.
From Murder to Genocide
• In Warsaw, the Nazis rounded up about
400,000 Jews and confined them into a
small area they called the Warsaw ghetto
with a wall topped with barbed wire and
guarded by Germans. Each month,
thousands of Jews died of hunger,
overcrowding, and lack of sanitation that
brought on diseases in the ghetto.
The Einsatzgruppen
• During the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler
ordered Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing
squads, to shoot Communist political leaders as
well as all Jews in German-occupied territory.
Nazi officials developed a plan to achieve what
one Nazi leader called the “final solution to the
Jewish question”. The plan would eventually
lead to the construction of special camps in
Poland where genocide, or the deliberate
destruction of an entire ethnic or cultural group,
was to be carried out against Europe’s Jewish
population.
The Death Camps
• The Nazis chose poison gas as the most effective way to
kill people. In January 1942, the Nazis opened a
specifically designed gas chamber disguised as a
shower room at the Auschwitz camp in western Poland.
Jews in Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, and other
lands were crowded into train cars and transported to
these death camps. Most of them were told they were
going to the East to work. On arrival at the two largest
camps, Auschwitz and Majdanek, prisoners were
organized into a line and inspected. The elderly, women
with children, and those who looked too weak to work
were herded into gas chambers and killed. Jewish
prisoners carried the dead to the crematoria, or huge
ovens where the bodies were burned.
The Death Camps cont.
• Those who were selected for work endured almost
unbearable conditions. The life expectancy of a Jewish
prisoner at Auschwitz was a few months. Men and
women both had their heads shaved and a registration
number tattooed on their arms.
• Their daily food was usually a cup of imitation coffee, a
small piece of bread, and foul-tasting soup made with
rotten vegetables. Diseases also killed many who were
weak from the labor and starvation. Others died from
torture or from cruel medical experiments. Periodically,
German overseers sent weak prisoners to the gas
chambers.
• At Auschwitz, 12,000 victims could be gassed and
cremated in a single day. There the Nazis killed as many
as 1.5 million people, about 90% of them Jews.
Fighting Back
• Jews in several ghettos and camps took
part in violent uprisings. These were
usually always put down immediately by
the Germans. A few Jews managed to
escape and get word out to some of the
camps of what was to come for the
prisoners. As a result about 50,000 Jews
at in the Warsaw ghetto fought with the
Germans for 27 days before finally being
defeated.
Rescue and Liberation
• Thousands of Jews died on death marches from
camp to camp.
• The Allies placed a lot of former Nazi leaders on
trial and charged them with crimes against
peace, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes. An International Military Tribunal
composed of members selected by the U.S.,
Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France
conducted the Nuremberg Trials in November
1945. Of the 24 Nazi defendants, 12 received
the death sentence.
Sec.4- The War in the Pacific
The Philippines Fall
• On May 6, 1942, more than 11,000 Americans and
Filipinos surrendered to invading Japanese forces. The
Japanese forced the prisoners to march 8 miles to an
army camp, where they were denied water and rest and
many were beaten and tortured. At least 10,000
prisoners died during the 6 to 12 day journey. Many were
executed by the guards when they grew too weak to
keep up. This became known as the Bataan Death
March. Those who survived were sent to prison camps,
where another 15,000 or more died.
• The brutality of Japanese soldiers in Bataan defied
accepted international standards of conduct towards
prisoners of war, which was discussed at the third
Geneva Convention.
The War at Sea
• At Pearl Harbor, Japan wanted to destroy the 3 aircraft
carriers that formed the heart of the Pacific Fleet. They
were the Lexington, the Enterprise, and the Saratoga.
• In April 1942, a group of American B-25 medium
bombers took off from the aircraft carrier Hornet on a
secret mission. Led by Lieutenant Colonel James
Doolittle, the planes flew several hundred miles to Japan
to drop bombs on Tokyo and other cities before crash
landing in China. Most of the pilots survived. Doolittle’s
raid caused little physical damage, but it boosted Allied
morale by proving to the Japanese they could be
attacked.
The War at Sea cont.
• The Battle of Coral Sea was a five day
battle that cost both sides more than half
their planes. The Japanese destroyed the
Lexington and badly damaged the
Yorktown. One Japanese carrier sank,
another lost most of its planes, and a third
was put out of action. The battle was a
draw, but it prevented the Japanese from
invading Australia. This was the first naval
combat carried out entirely by aircraft.
The Battle of Midway
• The Battle of Midway started on June 4, 1942, and was
fought entirely from the air. The American warplanes
surprised Japan’s carriers at a vulnerable time as the
Japanese were refueling planes and loading them with
bombs. On the Japanese ships, fuel hoses caught fire
and bombs exploded. The Americans sank 4 Japanese
carriers. The Japanese did manage to sink the
Yorktown. The other 2, however, were undamaged. The
sinking of the 4 Japanese carriers, in combination with
250 planes and most of Japan’s skilled naval pilots being
destroyed, was a devastating blow to the Japanese
Navy. The American victory was owed mainly to
Commander Joseph Rochefort, who broke the Japanese
code to learn crucial information before the attack began,
After this battle, Japan was unable to launch any more
offensive operations in the Pacific.
The Battle of Guadalcanal
• After their victory in the Pacific, the Allies wanted to
capture Guadalcanal where the Japanese were building
an airfield to threaten nearby Allied bases and lines of
communication with Australia. When the more than
11,000 marines landed on the island in August 1942, the
2,200 Japanese who were defending the island fled into
the jungle, forcing the marines to fight jungle warfare.
After several naval battles, the American navy took
control of the waters around the island in November,
limiting Japanese troop landings. Japan’s outnumbered
forces finally slipped off the island in February 1943. The
Allies had conquered their first piece of Japanese-held
territory.
Struggle for the Islands
• From Guadalcanal, American forces
began island-hopping, a military strategy
of selectively attacking specific enemyheld islands and bypassing others. By
capturing only a few crucial islands, the
U.S. effectively cut off the bypassed
islands from supplies and reinforcements
and made those islands useless to the
Japanese.
The Philippines Campaign
• Military planners wanted to bypass the Philippine
Islands, but McArthur opposed of this idea, claiming the
U.S. was obligated to free the Filipino people. Roosevelt
then decided to invade the Philippines. In mid-October,
160,000 American troops invaded the Philippine island of
Leyte.
• As these troops headed inland, the greatest naval battle
in world history took place. More than 280 warships took
part over three days in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. This was
the first battle in which Japanese kamikazes were used.
Kamikaze pilots loaded their aircraft with bombs and
then deliberately crashed them into enemy ships.
Despite this, the American force destroyed most of the
Japanese navy and won the battle. It took until June
1945 for the Allies to control the Philippines.
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
• On Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest battles of the
war took place. The battle started in February
1945. The marines after 3 days had only
advanced about 700 yards inland. Despite only
being opposed by about 25,000 Japanese, it
took almost a month to secure the island. They
fought almost to the last defender, with only 216
Japanese being taken prisoner. At the Battle of
Iwo Jima, the Americans had about 25,000
casualties. The U.S. awarded 27 Medals of
Honor for actions on Iwo Jima, more than in any
other single operation of the war.
Iwo Jima and Okinawa cont.
• The Battle of Okinawa was fought from April to June
1945. The 100,000 defenders of the island pledged to
fight to the death. The Allies gathered about 1,300
warships and more than 180,000 combat troops in an
invasion that was second only to Normandy in size.
Japanese pilots flew nearly 2,000 kamikaze attacks and
had banzai charges, or attacks in which the soldiers tried
to kill as many of the enemy as possible until they
themselves were killed. In June, after almost 3 months,
only 7,200 defenders were left to surrender. The
Americans lost 50,000 people in this battle, making it the
costliest battle in the Pacific war.
The Manhattan Project
• In August 1939, Roosevelt received a letter from Albert
Einstein, which he suggested that an incredibly powerful
new type of bomb could be built by the Germans.
Roosevelt then organized the Manhattan Project as a top
secret project to develop the atomic bomb before the
Germans did.
• On July 16, 1945, Manhattan Project scientists tested
the world’s first atomic bomb in the desert of New
Mexico. With a blinding flash of light, the explosion blew
a huge crater in the earth and shattered windows about
125 miles away. The main person supervising the
building of the bomb was J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The Decision to Drop the Bomb
• Once the bomb was ready, the question became
whether or not to use it against Japan. The alternative
possibilities for ending the war were: 1. a massive
invasion of Japan, expected to cost millions of Allied
casualties, 2. a naval blockade to starve Japan, along
with continued conventional bombing, 3. a demonstration
of the new weapon on a deserted island to pressure
Japan to surrender, 4. a softening of Allied demands for
an unconditional surrender.
• An advisory group of scientists, military leaders, and
government officials, called the Interim Committee, met
in the spring of 1945 to debate these ideas. Heavy
American casualties at Iwo Jima and Okinawa were a
factor in the committee’s support for using the bomb.
The final decision rested with President Harry Truman,
who considered the bomb to be a military weapon and
had no doubt it should be used. He even said he never
regretted his decision.
Japan Surrenders
• On August 6, 1945, an American plane, the Enola Gay,
dropped a single atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A blast of
intense heat annihilated the city’s center and its
residents in an instant. Many buildings that survived the
initial blast were destroyed by fires spread by powerful
winds. About 80,000 died and at least as many were
injured by fire, radiation sickness, and the force of the
explosion. At least 90 percent of the city’s buildings were
damaged or totally destroyed.
• 3 days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
On August 14, the government of Japan accepted the
American terms of surrender. The next day, Americans
celebrated V-J Day (Victory in Japan Day). The formal
surrender agreement was signed on September 2, 1945,
aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Sec. 5- The Social Impact of the
War
Economic Discrimination
• On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt signed
Executive Order 8802, opening jobs and job training
programs in defense plants to all Americans without
discrimination because of race, creed, color, or
national origin. This was the first time in American
history the government acted against discrimination in
employment.
• African Americans found new job opportunities but
also encountered new problems. Segregation forced
most African Americans to live in poor housing in overcrowded urban ghettos.
• In June 1943, a race riot in Detroit killed 34 people and
caused millions of dollars in damage. Later that
summer, a riot also broke out in New York City.
Divided Opinions
• The Pittsburg Courier, an African American
newspaper, launched a Double V campaign. The
first V stood for victory against the axis powers,
the second for victory in winning equality at home.
• Another step was the founding of the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) in Chicago in 1942.
CORE believed in using nonviolent techniques to
end racism. In May 1943, it organized its first sitin at a restaurant called the Jack Spratt Coffee
House. Groups of CORE members, including at
least one African American, filled the restaurant
and refused to leave until everyone was served.
Zoot Suit Riots
• In the 1940s, some young Mexican Americans in Los
Angeles began to wear a suit known as the “zoot suit”.
The look offended many people, especially sailors who
came to Los Angeles on leave from nearby military
bases. Groups of sailors roamed the streets in search
of zoot suiters, whom they beat up and humiliated for
looking un-American. Early in June 1943, the street
fights grew into full scale riots. Local newspapers
usually blamed Mexican Americans for the violence.
Police often arrested the victims rather than the sailors
who had begun the attacks. Army and navy officials
finally began restricting GIs’ off duty access to Los
Angeles.
Japanese Americans
• In late 1941, there were only about 127,000
Japanese Americans in the U.S., or .1% of
the population. Most lived on the West Coast,
where racial prejudice against them was
strong. About two thirds of Japanese
Americans had been born in the U.S.
Although they were native-born citizens, they
still often met hostility from their white
neighbors. Hostility grew into hatred and
hysteria after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
Japanese Internment
• As a result of these prejudices and fears, the government decided to
remove all “aliens” from the West Coast. On February 19, 1942,
President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized
the Secretary of War to establish military zones on the West Coast
and remove any and all persons from such zones. Officials told
foreign born Italians and Germans to move away from the coast, but
within a few months they canceled those orders. The government
set up the War Resolution Authority to move out everyone of
Japanese ancestry, about 110,000 people, both citizens and noncitizens. They would be interned, or confined, in camps in remote
areas far from the coast.
• Families lived in wooden barracks covered with tar paper, in rooms
equipped only with cots, blankets, and a light bulb. People had to
share a toilet, bathing, and dining facilities. Barbed wire surrounded
the camps, and armed guards patrolled the grounds. Although the
government referred to these as relocation camps, one journalist
referred to them as being close to concentration camps.
Japanese Internment cont.
• Families lived in wooden barracks covered
with tar paper, in rooms equipped only
with cots, blankets, and a light bulb.
People had to share a toilet, bathing, and
dining facilities. Barbed wire surrounded
the camps, and armed guards patrolled
the grounds. Although the government
referred to these as relocation camps, one
journalist referred to them as being close
to concentration camps.
Legal Challenges
• Four cases eventually reached the Supreme Court, which
ruled that the wartime relocation was constitutional. In one
case, California resident Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was
arrested for refusing to report to a relocation center.
Korematsu appealed, saying that his civil rights had been
violated. The Supreme Court, in Korematsu v. United States
(1944), ruled that the relocation policy was not based on race.
• Early in 1945, the government allowed Japanese Americans
to leave the camps. Some returned home and resumed their
lives, but others found that they had lost nearly everything. As
time passed, many Americans came to believe that the
internment had been a great injustice. In 1988, Congress
passed a law awarding each surviving Japanese American
internee a tax-free payment of $20,000. More than 40 years
after the event, the U.S. government also officially apologized.
Japanese Americans in the
Military
• During the war, the military refused to accept
Japanese Americans into the armed forces
until early 1943. Despite the government’s
harsh treatment of Japanese civilians,
thousands volunteered and eventually more
than 17,000 fought in the U.S. armed forces.
Most were Nisei, or citizens born in the U.S.
to Japanese immigrant parents, and some
volunteered while in internment camps. In
fact, the soldiers of the all-Japanese 442nd
Regimental Combat Team won more medals
for bravery than any other unit in U.S. history.