1. Internment of Japanese Americans
One tragic consequence of the Pearl Harbor attack was a virulent anti-Japanese sentiment and the fear that the Japanese might act as saboteurs for Japan in case of invasion.
During World War II over 114,000 Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and forced to live in one of ten internment camps which were specifically constructed for this purpose. The camps were in Arizona, Colorado, California, Arkansas, Wyoming, and Utah. About two-thirds of the camp residents were first-generation Americans: about one-third were resident aliens, many of whom had lived in the United States for years but had been denied the right to apply for citizenship.
Residents of the camps were permitted to take into the camps only what they could carry. Other personal property had to be sold or put in storage. Property that was sold was usually sold for a fraction of its worth. Possessions in storage often were stolen or vandalized. Millions of dollars of private property were lost.

2. Violation of Civil Liberties
Executive Order No (1942) – Order of FDR authorizing War Department to remove Japanese “enemy aliens” to isolated internment camps.
Korematsu v. United States

3. World War II Battles
2 “Theaters” of War (where the action is): European Theater and Pacific Theater

4. General Strategy
The U.S. decided to concentrate on Europe first because we believed that Germany was the greatest threat, while holding off Japan
Hemispheric strategy: during WWII the U.S. continued FDR’s “Good Neighbor Policy” (1933) to develop a Western Hemisphere common front against fascism

5. Japanese Expansion
After Pearl Harbor, Japan pounded American military bases in the Philippines, taking over the capital city of Manila in Jan and overwhelming the American and Filipino defenders at Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island in April and May, On the “Bataan Death March,” thousands of POWs died, many due to torture from the Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur promised, “I shall return!”

6. This poster came out after the Bataan Death March to protest Japanese brutality.

7. Japanese Expansion (cont.)
Next, the Japanese took the U.S. Pacific islands of Wake and Guam.
By mid-1942, the Japanese had taken over most lands and islands of the western Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia. Their empire measured 5,000 miles from north to south and 6,000 miles from east to west.

8. Doolittle’s Raid (1942)
Was the first U.S. air attack against Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor
Led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, the Americans bombed Japanese cities
Did little physical damage, but inflicted psychological damage

9. Battle of the Coral Sea May 1942 off the northeast coast of Australia
Allies succeeded in stopping the Japanese drive toward Australia in this 5-day battle
First naval battle in history where all the fighting was done by carrier-based aircraft

10. Battle of the Coral Sea

11. Aircraft Carriers in WWII
Aircraft carriers were new to WWII and changed naval warfare, since now airplanes could take off from ships and bomb enemy ships
Airplanes taking off from aircraft carriers could also engage the enemy in the skies above the oceans and bomb island bases
Picture: USS Essex at Okinawa in 1945

12. Battle of Midway / June 1942
Called Midway because Midway Island is located about halfway between North America & Asia
U.S. advantage: we had broken the secret Japanese naval radio code and knew an attack was coming
Was the turning point of the war in the Pacific
U.S. commander: Admiral Chester Nimitz

13. Battle of Midway (cont.)
Main reasons Japan attacked Midway: it was a threat because it had the closest American naval & air base close to Japan, and if Japan captured Midway’s base, it could launch assaults on Hawaii
1st Japanese goal: sought to eliminate the U.S. as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its “Great East Asia Prosperity Sphere”
2nd Japanese goal: intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle Raid

14. Battle of Midway (cont.)
Japanese plan: to lure the U.S. aircraft carriers into a trap
Plan didn’t work because the U.S. had broken the Japanese code, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own
Picture: U.S. cryptologists (mostly women!)

15. Battle of Midway (cont.)
The U.S. sank 4 Japanese aircraft carriers and many other ships, crippling Japan’s navy
Japan also lost hundreds of airplanes
Ended Japan’s threat to Hawaii
After Midway, and the exhausting attrition of the Soloman Islands campaign, Japan’s shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas
The Allied counteroffensive started after Midway, far earlier than Japanese military planners had expected

16. Battle of Midway Pictures
USS Yorktown

17. Battle of Guadalcanal in the Soloman Islands
Very long: Aug to Feb. 1943
First Allied offensive in the Pacific and first land battle ag. the Japanese / started “island hopping”
Japanese needed to be run off because they threatened Australia from this island
U.S. soldiers learned how fanatical the Japanese soldiers were
Soldiers faced jungle rot and leeches

18. Strategy of Island Hopping
Was the main American strategy in the Pacific
Was used to defeat the Japanese
Idea = start in the South Pacific and take over certain islands to get closer and closer to Japan
Strategy to bypass heavily fortified Japanese positions and instead concentrate the limited Allied resources on strategically important islands that were not as well defended but were capable of supporting the drive to Japan

19. Island Hopping (cont.)
This strategy was possible in part because the Allies used naval and air attacks to blockade and isolate the bypassed Japanese bases, weakening their garrisons and reducing the Japanese ability to resupply them; in MacArthur’s words, the troops on the bypassed islands would “wither on the vine,” or be useless to the Japanese

20. Geographical Problems of Fighting in the Pacific Theater
Naval battles were fought over the flow of supplies
U.S. faced many difficulties in delivering weapons, food, & medical supplies to troops
Main ways we accomplished this: a strong navy and the quick building of bases on newly conquered islands, complete with port facilities and airfields

21. Allied Advancement Toward Japan
The Allies won victories in the Soloman, Gilbert, Marshall, and Mariana Islands.
From strategic bases such as Saipan in the Mariana Islands, the Allies launched long-range bombing missions against Japan.
General MacArthur followed through on his earlier promise and liberated the Philippines in Oct. 1944; the largest battle for the Philippines was the Battle of Leyte Gulf (a naval fight).

23. Battle of Leyte Gulf (the Philippines)
In a series of engagements in and around the Leyte Gulf in Oct. 1944, the Japanese navy was crippled
Japan lost 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, and many other ships
First time the Japanese used the kamikaze (“divine wind”), planes packed with explosives and flown by pilots who were trained to crash them into enemy ships

25. Battle of Iwo Jima / Feb.-March, 1945
Iwo Jima means “Sulfur Island”
A small, smelly, gray, volcanic island
Iwo Jima, along with Okinawa, had been held by Japan for centuries, and these 2 islands were the closest to the Japanese home islands
Strategic reason Allies wanted Iwo Jima: heavy bombers had been bombing Japanese cities from Saipan, & taking over the much-closer Iwo Jima meant fighters could accompany the bombers
Strong Japanese defenses: 21,000 soldiers and many pillboxes and gun emplacements connected by underground passages; Japanese soldiers hid in tunnels and caves

26. Iwo Jima (cont.) Naval and air bombardments preceded the landing
A few days after landing Mount Suribachi was captured, the highest point on the island, and the flag raising there became the most famous photograph of the war
More than 6,000 Marines died, and almost all of the 21,000 Japanese defenders

27. 2 Atomic Bombs Ended the War The Manhattan Project: Developing the A-Bomb
Reason for name: originally based in NY
Run by the Army and by scientists employed by the government
FDR agreed to the secret research after being told in 1939 by Albert Einstein & others that the Germans were conducting atomic research

28. Manhattan Project (cont.)
Research and production took place at many sites
2 of the most important were Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Los Alamos, New Mexico
Los Alamos: established in 1942; scientists carried out their work in secrecy, with military police patrolling the town
First atomic bomb detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the desert

29. Trinity Site in New Mexico: Testing of First Atomic Bomb
J. Robert Oppenheimer with Major Leslie Groves

30. FDR’s death
President Roosevelt died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945

31. Truman’s Decision to Drop the Bombs
President Harry Truman was informed about the bombs soon after FDR’s death
Within several months had to make the decision to drop the bombs
Reasons for decision: to save the estimated 1 million Allied soldiers who would die during an invasion of Japan, to end the war faster, and to force the Japanese to surrender unconditionally and give up their empire

32. Hiroshima / Aug. 6, 1945
Colonel Paul Tibbets, flying the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
A huge mushroom cloud arose
Most of Hiroshima was destroyed and between 80, ,000 died instantly
Radiation poisoning killed thousands later

33. Hiroshima

34. Nagasaki / Aug. 9, 1945
The Japanese refused to surrender after Hiroshima, so 3 days later, another bomb was dropped
The original target was the city of Kokura, but due to bad weather Nagasaki was bombed instead
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were industrial centers with mid-sized populations

35. Japan’s surrender
Japan’s emperor Hirohito urged the Japanese generals to surrender after the atomic bombings
Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, with the official surrender ceremony taking place on Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay (V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day)

36. War Plans (FDR & Churchill)
In the ABC-1 AGREEMENT with Britain, the US adopted the strategy of “getting Germany first.”
If Germany was knocked out first, the combined Allied forces could be concentrated on Japan.
Just enough American strength would be sent to the Pacific to prevent Japan from digging in too deeply.

37. European Theater of War
Primary difficulty the U.S. faced in the first several years of WWII in delivering weapons and other supplies to troops in the European Theater of war = German subs sank Allied shipping
Allies won this “Battle of the Atlantic” with convoys, radar, and sonar
Soviets bore the brunt of fighting against Germany
Leningrad: (St. Petersburg) was besieged by the Germans for about 900 days (Sept to Jan. 1944)---about ½ million Russian civilians died
Stalingrad: Nazis attempted to take over, but instead lost due to the Russian winter & the Russians trapped them in the city

38. North Africa Campaign
The Allies invaded North Africa in 1942 to protect the Suez Canal, Britain’s lifeline to India
Jeeps were first used on the sand in North Africa
Allies won in North Africa

39. Italian Campaign
After taking Sicily, Allied troops landed in southern Italy
Stunned by their army’s collapse in Sicily, the Italian people forced the dictator Mussolini to resign, and he was placed under arrest
Hitler was determined to stop the Allies in Italy rather than Germany
German armies occupied much of Italy for the rest of the war, fiercely opposing Allied landings on Italy’s west coast (for example, “Bloody Anzio” in 1944)
The most difficult fighting in Europe in 1943 for the Americans occurred in Italy
The effort to free Italy did not succeed until 1945, when Germany was close to collapse
Mussolini was assassinated by Italians in 1945

40. Fighting in the Soviet Union
Battle of Stalingrad (Aug to Jan. 1943): Germans lost a huge army to the Russian winter and as Russian POWs
The Soviets bore the brunt of fighting Hitler’s armies for much of the war, which embittered Stalin and contributed to the upcoming Cold War

41. Background of D-Day
Since the Allies couldn’t get into Germany from Italy, it was decided to invade Nazi-occupied France to reach Germany
Became the plan in 1944 (“Operation Overlord”)
The Allies gathered vast amounts of men and weapons in England
General Dwight D. Eisenhower = the Supreme Allied Commander in charge of D-Day

42. D-Day / Invasion of Normandy
D-Day occurred on June 6, 1944
Allied troops (American, English, & Canadian) crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France (Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold, and Sword)
Troops met stiff resistance from the Germans, especially on Omaha Beach
Casualties would have been worse if the Allies had not succeeded in faking out Hitler, who believed the attack was coming further north at Calais and had many troops stationed there

43. D-Day

44. After D-Day / Liberation of Paris
After 5 days of fighting, the Allies held a strip of France 80 miles long
Less than 3 weeks later, 1 million men were ashore and moving steadily inland
Free French Resistance Movement helped the Allies liberate Paris from Nazi control- Aug. 1944

45. Generals Patton and Bradley Race Across Europe
General George Patton, a flamboyant tank general, liberated Paris and then raced across Europe into Germany with his 3rd Army (Patton was eccentric and believed he was a great general due to multiple reincarnations)
General Omar Bradley, called the “soldier’s general,” charged toward Germany as head of the 12th Army Group
Pictures: Patton on left, Bradley on right

46. Battle of the Bulge (Belgium, Dec. 1944--Jan. 1945)
Was Hitler’s last offensive in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium
Goal: to drive a wedge between the Allies forces in the Low Countries and those in France, and eventually to capture the port city of Antwerp, which provided supplies to the Allies
Name comes from the German tank division that drove 60 miles into Allies territory, creating a bulge in the front lines
Some American soldiers were trapped, but the arrival of General Patton’s Third Army stopped Hitler’s final offensive

47. Battle of the Bulge

48. Germany and War on 2 Fronts
Hitler now faced the old German nightmare---war on two fronts
The Soviet Army, five million strong, advanced against Germany from the east
The U.S. and British armies were sweeping across the Rhine River into Germany from the east

49. Eisenhower’s Order to Halt at the Elbe River
Eisenhower decided that the U.S.-British advance would concentrate on western Germany, so he ordered them to halt at the Elbe River
This meant the Soviet Army would have the honor of taking over Berlin, the German capital
General Bernard Montgomery, Britain’s main general, strongly disagreed with this decision
Eisenhower’s refusal to take Berlin remains controversial & caused major Cold War problems
In April Soviet and U.S. soldiers met at Torgau

50. Fall of Berlin / April-May, 1945
In mid-April 1945 the Soviet Army began its drive toward Berlin, and by the 21st had entered the city limits
2 weeks of intensive street fighting followed
Hitler committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin on April 30
Berlin surrendered on May 2

51. Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) May 8, 1945

52. Wartime Conferences Casablanca Conference, Jan. 1943
Cairo Conference, Nov , 1943
Tehran Conference, Nov. 28—Dec. 1, 1943
Yalta Conference, Feb. 1945
Potsdam Conference, July 17—Aug. 2, 1945

53. Casablanca Conference
Casablanca, Morocco, Jan. 1943
Attendees: FDR, Churchill, Charles de Gaulle (leader of the Free French Movement)
The policy of the Allies to demand the unconditional surrender of Germany and the other Axis Powers was first decided here
Churchill wanted to move against Germany by taking Sicily and the rest of Italy, to which FDR agreed

54. Cairo Conference Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 22—26, 1943
Attendees: FDR, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek of China (Stalin refused to attend, since at the time Japan and the Soviets had a peace pact)
Said the Allies would continue deploying military force until Japan’s unconditional surrender and Japan would be stripped of the islands and lands it had taken over

55. Tehran Conference Tehran, Iran, Nov. 28—Dec. 1, 1943
Attendees: FDR, Churchill, Stalin
First of the wartime conferences between the “Big 3” (U.S., Britain, Soviet Union)
Main outcome: the commitment to the opening of a second front against Nazi Germany by the Western Allies by May 1, 1944 (this became D-Day---the Normandy invasion)

56. Yalta Conference Yalta, in Crimea in the Soviet Union, Feb. 1945
Attendees: FDR, Churchill, Stalin
Was held mainly to discuss re-establishment of war-torn European nations
FDR was sick and frail, and was criticized for giving too much leeway to Stalin (for example, the eastern European nations would be “friendly” to the Soviet Union; Stalin promised to hold free elections in Poland, but this never happened)
Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan 3 months after the conclusion of the war against Germany (in exchange for this, Stalin would be given spheres of influence in parts of Asia)
Confirmed the policy adopted at Casablanca of demanding Germany’s unconditional surrender

57. Potsdam Conference Potsdam, Germany (near Berlin) July 17—Aug. 2, 1945
Attendees: “Big 3”: Harry Truman, Churchill, Clement Attlee (Britain), Stalin (also Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek)
Discussed post-war arrangements in Europe
Potsdam Declaration by Truman, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek of China demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan (the war in Europe was already over), or Japan would face “prompt and utter destruction” (meaning atomic bombing, although this was not known to the world)