Transcript K. WWII, part 2

WWII, The Home front
After Pearl Harbor
Increased hysteria on the West coast about potential
Japanese espionage networks, leading to
heightened racism and violence
Executive Order 9066, Feb. 19, 1942
“relocation” of all people of Japanese ancestry
to internment camps for the duration of the war
• At least
120,000,
2/3rd were
citizens
(Nisei)
• 10 camps
in remote
areas of
western
U.S.
• “Relocated” had 48 hours to prepare
• Could only take what they could carry
• Had to sell homes & businesses at very cheap
prices
• Images from
Manzanar
Most interred for
duration of the war
Massive problems in
camps
Japanese in Hawaii
NOT interred
Patriotism in the camps
• Thousands of Nisei volunteered, most served in
Europe, some in intelligence divisions in the Pacific
• 442nd Regimental Combat Team – most decorated
unit in WWII.
• 4500 men amassed 18,000 individual decorations
• 1982 – U.S. gov’t condemned internment as war
hysteria and racism, and apologized.
• 1988 Congress awarded each interned Japanese
American $20,000
• Governor of California during internment, Earl
Warren
The Home front
• Massive War
Mobilization
• Propaganda
campaigns
• War rationing
• Victory gardens
Within the Military
•
•
•
•
1.2 million African-American men served
Segregated, at first not allowed in combat roles,
Allowed to fight in 1944 because of: casualties
“Fight for the Right to Fight” campaign-NAACP,
black press, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
• “Double V Campaign” victory over our enemies
at home and victory over our enemies abroad”fight racism and prove themselves
through patriotism
761st Tank Battalion
• Patton “est. a record for yourself and for your
race” and “make a liar out of me”
• Once said blacks were incapable of the
technical ability need to operate a tank.
• 750 men, 293 purple hearts, 60 bronze stars
and 11 silver stars
332nd Fighter Group
“Tuskegee Airmen”
• flew escorts for bombers
• 15,000 sorties and 1500 missions and
never lost a bomber
• destroyed or damaged 409 enemy aircraft
• won 95 distinguished
Flying Crosses.
WACS-Women’s
Army Corp
• 1942 - only secretaries,
telephone pool, driving
and cooking, all at
reduced pay
• 1943 – rank and pay
raises and 406 “female”
jobs.
1944 first black women assigned for
overseas duty
WASPs-Women’s Air Force Service
Pilots
• 1800 women, flew every type of plane, including
B29s, to “show men how easy it was.”
• harassment and sabotage (sugar in gas tank)
• When a utility plane crashed, the male pilot’s body
was send home w/honors and the WASPs had to
take up a collection to send his female co-pilot’s
body home.
• Dec 44 –WASPs disbanded
w/no formal commendations
• Service finally acknowledged
in 1977.
Being Gay in WWII
• The military: previously “didn’t notice” homosexuals as
long as they stayed hidden.
• Started screening for, and giving undesirable
discharges to, gay Americans during this time.
• While the official line wasn’t persecution, many officers
turned it into that.
• Weighing personal options:
• join and be patriotic, and potentially either put your
love-life on hold, or face persecution
• Or don’t join and face persecution as unpatriotic.
• “Blessing in disguise:” as large numbers of draftees
were in sex-segregated barracks and able to meet
other homosexuals for the first time.
The Labor Force: With most men in the military,
labor shortages opened up opportunities
White women- over 6 million women took war jobs, half
had never worked before
War jobs: welders, electricians, assembly lines and in
munitions plants
• Over 3/4 married, and most over 35
• very different that the typically young woman working
in a low paying “female” occupation like secretary or
sales, until she got married.
• Image of “Rosie the Riveter”-war work as patriotic
duty, yet still feminine
• Jobs paid well, generally much better than “female”
jobs.
ROSIE
• Women in war jobs still earned less than
men and black women earned less than
white women
Women in the Workforce
• Told from the beginning that it was simple
a war move and they would give up their
war jobs when the men came home
• Survey in ‘44 showed most, especially
middle-aged, married women, hoped to
keep their war jobs.
• Also had to pull double duty.
• Few to no child care facilities.
African Americans in the Workforce
• African American men often had to take semiskilled positions in war industries, but they paid
better than menial labor
• Black women: before WWII, 70% of working
black women were domestic servants, by the
end of the war, dropped to 50%
• 400,000 went into defense plants.
• “My sister always said that Hitler was the one
who got us out of the white folks’ kitchens.”
Massive population shifts
• move to where war jobs were located-west
coast, manufacturing cities in the north, port
cities.
• Ex-Los Angeles, African American and
Mexican/Mexican American workers coming it at
a rate of 10,000/month.
• Bracero program, 1942-100,000s of Mexican
laborers brought in to work as farm laborers.
• Fueled racial hatred and divisions.
Zoot Suit Riots-June 1943
• rumors of gangs, drugs,
crime, draft-dodging.
• Reality: MexicanAmericans served in a far
greater proportion that
their percentage of the
general population
(350,000 out of 1.4
million). Many were
zootsuiters.
• Integrated into the
military.
• Nazis murdered 6 million Jews, 1.5 million of
whom were children, and 5 million other people.
• The West knew since 1942, but tried to keep
info from the public and did nothing to help
Jews trying to escape.
• U.S. and Canada reduced # of visas available
to Jews.
• 800,000 Jews escaped
or found refuge during
the Holocaust,
less than 1/7
of the # murdered.
• Dr. Feng Shan Ho,
Chinese diplomat
Chiune Sempo Sugihara
Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes,
Portuguese diplomat
• Vast majority of diplomats who issued visas to Jews
did so against the direct orders of their home
countries, most were punished in one form or another
by home countries (includes the Vatican).
• U.S. was no better - refused to increase visa #s
available to Jews, didn’t even fill the quotas for the
small # of Jews allowed in.
• Wouldn’t even relax quotas for Jewish children:
“20,000 (Jewish) children would all too soon grow up
to be 20,000 ugly adults.”
• The St. Louis, 900 Jewish refugees from Europe,
supposed to go to Havana, denied entry, docked in
Florida, denied entry and forced to go back to Europecertain death.
King
Christian X
of Denmark
• Hannah Szenes
City of Shanghi
The War in the Pacific
• After end of WWII in Europe (May 1945)
remember FDR is dead and a very unprepared
Truman is now President
•
•War in the
Pacific to that
point: islandhopping among
Japanese
possessions in
the Pacific
• Island Hopping: Particularly bloody and vicious
fighting.
• Racist misconceptions harmed both sides
• U.S. misconceptions about Japanese fighting ability
initially led to underestimation of ability,
• Later believed Japanese were so fanatical, they’d fight
to the last civilian before surrendering (caused by
battles where soldiers would commit suicide rather
than surrender, and some instances of civilian
suicides)
• Suicides were often caused by Japanese
misconceptions about the brutality of Americans-horror
stories of what the Americans would do if they caught
you.
• U.S. beginning to plan invasion of the southernmost
island of the Japanese chain, for Nov. of ’45, with the
main island targeted for March of ’46.
Potsdam Conference
• Truman, Stalin and Churchill.
• Truman receives word of the successful test of
the Manhattan Project, equivalent of 20,000
tons of TNT.
• Manhattan Project-secret program began under
FDR, in New Mexico, to develop A-bomb.
Believed Germany was developing one.
Scientists from all over U.S.
& émigrés from Germany.
• After Truman receives word,
demeanor changes.
Using the A-bomb
• Japan refused an unconditional surrenderwanted to maintain emperor.
• Aug. 6, 1945, Enola Gay drops Little Boy on
Hiroshima at 8:15 am. 100,000 dead instantly,
another 50,000 dead by end of year (radiation
poisoning)
• Japan still didn’t surrender
• Aug. 9, 1945, Bock’s Car drops Fat Man on
Nagasaki, in early afternoon. 2/3 of the city pop
(240,000) killed or badly injured.
• Japan finally agrees to surrender terms, which
include keeping their emperor (more of a figure
head).
• Long term issues-radiation poisoning, birth
defects, stigmatization of those physically
affected by the bomb (not to mention
Koreans who were in Japan as forced
labor)
1. The bomb saved 1 million American lives, not to
mention 100s of thousands of Japanese. After the
bomb was dropped, reports of the estimates of U.S.
casualties were around 1 mil. Actual military reports
show much lower estimates. Fire-bombing of Tokyo
actually killed more Japanese than the bomb
(wooden and paper buildings).
2. We had the bomb, so we were going to use it.
3. Racism/Revenge for Pearl Harbor
4. To Scare the Soviets.
• a public test, to scare Japan rejected as impractical.
• -much lower military estimates
• -Truman’s attitude change at Potsdam
• -Soviets scheduled to enter the war in the Pacific
• -Recently de-classified Soviet documents show
Japan was trying to making peace overtures through
the Soviets, but they did not get translated and to the
Americans in time.
• What ever the reality, Stalin BELIEVED Truman
dropped the bomb to try to scare him, but Stalin
already had info on the bomb and was working
on one of his own. US assumed it would take
the Soviets forever, they had their own bomb by
1949.
• Massive psychological issues-U.S. public
generally did not see pictures from Japan (of the
people) for many years, but other countries did.
U.S. public didn’t really know much about
radiation. Use of the bomb completely changed
the whole world. Only time a weapon of that
magnitude had been used.
• U.S. emerges after WWII as THE world power.
Possess the bomb, war not fought on U.S.
territory, no damage; war production had the
economy booming. Europe in shambles,
economic problems, loss of colonies, etc…