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, code-named 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 German-occupied 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 undesirable-Communists, 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 enemy-held 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 over-crowded 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 sit-in 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 non-citizens. 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.