Unit 17: USA Enters the WarOHS History Team

Learning Objectives

• Explain the role of geographic and military factors on the outcomes of the battles in the Pacific and European theaters of war.

• Identify the roles and sacrifices of individual American soldiers.

• Examine the impact of women on the workforce and armed forces.

• Examine the impact of World War 2 on the economic and social conditions of African Americans.

• Discuss the issues and impact of the internment of Japanese Americans

• Describe the war’s impact on the home front

Big Concepts• America enters World War 2 following the attack at Pearl Harbor.• The United States agrees to focus on defeating Germany first.• To fight Japan the United States uses a geographic strategy known as island

hopping.• America wins a pivotal naval battle against the Japanese near the islands of

Midway.• Women and minorities play a major role in the American war effort.• World War 2 leads to the de-segregation/integration of the Armed Forces.• Japanese Americans on the west coast are forced to sell their belongings

and relocate to several internment camps.• The issue over Japanese internment is brought before the Supreme Court

in the court case Fred Korematsu v. United States of America.• America home front changes due to rationing, bond drives, propaganda,

and the conversion of factories to wartime production.

Key terms

• Yellow = Must Copy

• Green = Optional / time permits

Battle of Midway

• took place on June 5, 1942 (June 4-June 7)

• The United States Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway, marking a turning point in the war in the Pacific theatre

Tuskegee Airmen

• were the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (AAC), a precursor of the U.S. Air Force.

• Trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama

• they flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II.

Tuskegee Airmen

• Excellent record as fighter escorts in European Theatre.

• “Redtail Angels” or “Black Birdmen”

442nd Regimental Combat Team

• The regiment is best known for its history as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry

Nisei Battalion

• The families of many of its soldiers were subject to internment.

• The unit became the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the United States Armed Forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients.

Navajo Code Talkers

• Bilingual Navajo speakers specially by the US Marine Corps to serve in their standard communications units of the Pacific theater.

Navajo Code Talkers

• never were able to break the code.

Women in workforce and armed services• In 1945, women comprised 36.1 percent of the civilian labor force. At

the height of the war, there were 19,170,000 women in the labor force. Between 1940 and 1945, the female labor force grew by 50 percent. One in ten married women entered the labor force.

• approximately 400,000 U.S. women served with the armed forces.• Clerical Work

• Non-Combat pilots

• Medical staff

Fair Employment Practices Committee

• African Americans lobbied FDR to end discriminatory practices in the war industries.

• created in 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work."

Integration of the Armed Services

• executive Order 9981 is an executive order issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman.

• It abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces.

• The executive order eventually led to the end of segregation in the services

Fred Korematsu v. United States• President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 signed Executive

Order 9066.

• The order armed forces to remove people of Japanese ancestry from what they designated as military areas and surrounding communities in the United States.

• The order set in motion the mass transportation and relocation of more than 120,000 Japanese people to sites the government called detention camps

• On December 18, 1944, a divided Supreme Court ruled, in a 6-3 decision, that the detention was a “military necessity” not based on race.

Rationing

• Rationing was a means of ensuring the fair distribution of food and commodities when they were scarce.

• It began with petrol/gas and later included other goods such as butter, sugar and bacon.

• Eventually, most foods were covered by the rationing system with the exception of fruit and vegetables.

Bond drives

• The campaigns to encourage Americans to buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance World Wars I and II were known as war bond drives. ...

• Between November 1942 and December 1945 Americans invested in approximately $150 billion in bonds to finance World War II.

Propaganda

• “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause”

Bracero Program

• brought Mexican workers to replace American workers dislocated by the war.

• (from the Spanish term bracero, meaning "manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms")

• was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico.

Wartime Factories

• In the wake of Pearl Harbor, the president set staggering goals for the nation’s factories: 60,000 aircraft in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943; 120,000 tanks in the same time period and 55,000 antiaircraft guns.

• In an attempt to coordinate government war agencies Roosevelt created the War Production Board in 1942 and later in 1943 the Office of War Mobilization.

1. Battle of Midway A. Banned discriminatory employment practices in war factories

2. Tuskegee Airmen B. Ended segregation in the military

3. 442nd Combat Regiment C. Buying government bonds to finance the war

4. Navajo Code Talkers D. Supreme Court case that ruled Japanese interment was legal

5. Women in Work Force/Armed Services

E. African American combat pilots

6. Fair Employment Practices Comm. F. To save and conserve food and gas for the war effort

7. Integration of Armed Services G. comprised 36.1 percent of the civilian labor force

8. Korematsu v. United States H. brought Mexican workers to replace American workers dislocated by the war

9. Rationing I. ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause

10. Bond Drives J. Critical American naval engagement that turned the tide of war against the Japanese

11. Propaganda K. Conversion of peacetime industry to military production

12. Bracero Program L. Bilingual language specialists for the Marines

13. Wartime Factories M. Japanese-American Infantry Troops