Chapter 24The World at War, 1937-1945

I. The Road to WarA. The Rise of Fascism

1. Japan and Italy2. Hitler’s Germany

B. Isolationists versus Interventionists1. The Popular Front2. The Failure of Appeasement3. War Arrives

C. The Attack on Pearl Harbor

II. Organizing For VictoryA. Financing the WarB. Mobilizing the American Fighting ForceC. Workers and the War Effort

1. Rosie the Riveter2. Wartime Civil Rights3. Organized Labor

D. Politics in Wartime

III. Life on the Home FrontA. “For the Duration”B. Migration and the Wartime City

1. Racial Conflict2. Gay and Lesbian Community Formation

C. Japanese Removal

IV. Fighting and Winning the WarA. Wartime Aims and TensionsB. The War In Europe

1. D-Day2. The Holocaust

C. The War in the Pacific1. The Manhattan Project

D. Planning the Postwar World

I. The Road to WarAn antidemocratic movement known as Fascism, which had originate in Italy during the 1920s, developed in German, Spain, and Japan. By the mid-1930s, these nations had instituted authoritarian, militaristic governments led by powerful dictators: Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco in Spain, and after 1940, Hideki Tojo in Japan.

A. The Rise of Fascism1. Japan and Italy

a) In 1931, Japanese troops occupied Manchurian, an industrialized province in Northern China, and in 1937, the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of China.

b) In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, one of the few remaining independent countries in Africa.

2. Hitler’s Germanya) When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, the Reichstag (the German

legislature) granted him dictatorial power to deal with the economic crisis.

b) In 1936, Hitler began to rearm Germany, in violation of the Versailles treaty. In 1936, Hitler sent troops into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone under the term of Versailles. France & Britain did nothing. Later that year, Hitler and Mussolini formed the Rome-Berlin Axis, a political and military alliance between the two fascist nations.

B. Isolationists versus InterventionistsThe Neutrality Act of 1935 imposed an embargo on selling arms to warring countries and declared that Americans traveling on the ships of belligerent nations did so at their own risk.

1. The Popular Fronta) Between 1935 and 1938, Communist Party membership peaked at about 100,000

in the United States.

b) Many supporters in the United States grew uneasy with the Popular Front: a party or coalition representing left-wing elements, in particular an alliance of communist, radical, and socialist elements formed and gaining some power in countries such as France and Spain in the 1930s

2. The Failure of Appeasementa) At the Munich Conference in September 1938, Britain and France gain

capitulated, agreeing to let Germany annex the Sudetenland- a German-speaking order area of Czechoslovakia- in return for Hitler’s pledge to seek no more territory.

b) In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin shocked the world by signing a mutual nonaggression pact. On September 1, 1939, Hitler launched a blitzkrieg against Poland. Two Days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany and World War II had officially begun.

c) Two days after the European War started, The United States declared its neutrality.

d) German conquest Poland in September 1939. On April 9, 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. In May, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France were invaded France surrendered inn June 22, 1940. Britain stood alone.

3. War Arrives

a) In response, in 1940 isolationists formed the America First Committee (AFC), with well-respected figures such as the aviator Charles Lindbergh and Senator Gerald Nye speaking on the AFC’s behalf, to keep the nation out of war.

b) In May, Roosevelt created the National Defense Advisory Commission and brought two prominent Republicans, Henry Stimson and Frank Knox, into his cabinet as secretaries or war and the navy.

c) Being reelected, Roosevelt undertook to persuade Congress to increase aid to Britain, whose survival he viewed as key to American security

d) Two months later, in March 941, with Britain no longer able to pay cash for arms, Roosevelt convinced Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act. The legislation authorized the president to “lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of” arms and equipment to Britain or any other country whose defense was considered vital to the security of the United States.

C. The Attack on Pearl Harbora) Japan sought to match overseas empires of Britain, France, Holland, and the

United States.

b) Early on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Japanese bombers attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing more than 2,400 Americans.

c) Three days later, Germany and Italy declared was on the United States, which in turn declared war on the Axis powers.

II. Organizing For VictoryWhen Congress passed the War Powers Act in December 1941, it gave President Roosevelt control over all aspects of the war effort. This act market the beginning of what historians call the imperial presidency: the far-reaching use (& sometimes abuse) of executive authority during the latter part of the 20th century.

A. Financing the Wara) Between 1940 and 1945, the annual gross national product doubled, after-tax

profits of American businesses nearly doubled, and farm output grew by one-third.

b) The Revenue Act of 1942 expanded the number of people paying income taxes from 3.9 million to 42.6 million.

c) The powerful War Production Board (WPB) awarded defense contracts, allocated scare resources for military uses, and persuaded businesses to convert to military production.

d) To secure maximum production, the WPB preferred to deal with major corporations rather than with small businesses.

e) By 1945, the largest one hundred American companies produced 70% of the nation’s industrial output.

B. Mobilizing the American Fighting Forcea) The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and

other civil rights groups reprimanded the government, but the military continued to separate African Americans and assign then menial duties.

b) Native Americans were “Code Talkers” because they spoke differently among each other and the opponent didn’t understand what they said.

c) About 140,000 served in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), and 100,000 served in the navy’s Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).

d) Most of the jobs that women did in the military resembled women’s jobs in civilian life.

C. Workers and the War EffortBy 1943, with the economy operating at full capacity, the breadlines and double-digit unemployment of the 1930s were a memory.

1. Rosie the Rivetera) Women made up 36% of the labor force in 1945, compared with 24% at the

beginning of the war.

b) Wartime work thus remained bittersweet for women. The majority remained clustered in low-wage service jobs.

2. Wartime Civil Rightsa) In 1940, only 240 of the nation’s 100,000 aircraft workers were black, and most

of them were janitors.b) In Chicago, James Farmer helped to found the Congress of Racial Equality

(CORE) in 1942, a group that would become known nationwide in the 1960s for its direct-action protest such as sit-ins.

c) The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Congress of Spanish Speaking Peoples, pressed the government and private employers to end anti-Mexican discrimination.

d) Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez began to fight this labor system in the 1940s.

3. Organized Labora) Many wartime agencies extended the power of the federal government, one of the

most important of which was the War Production Board (WPB), which awarded defense contracts, evaluated military and civilian requests for scarce resources, and oversaw the conversion of industry to military production.

b) The WPB preferred to deal with major corporations; these very large businesses would later form the core of the military-industrial complex of the postwar years.

c) Working together, American business and government turned out a prodigious supply of military hardware: 86,000 tanks 296,000 airplanes, 15 million rifles and machine guns, 64,000 landing craft, and 6,500 cargo ships and naval vessels.

d) Dissatisfaction peaked in 1943, a year in which a nationwide railroad strike was narrowly averted and John L. Lewis led the United Mine Workers on a strike; Lewis won wage concessions, but he alienated Congress and the public. Congress passed the anti-union Smith-Connally Labor Act over Roosevelt’s veto, and strikes were entirely prohibited in defense industries.

D. Politics in Wartimea) Roosevelt began to drop New Deal programs once mobilization began to bring

full employment. Later into the war, Roosevelt called for a second bill of rights, yet his commitment to it remained largely rhetorical since it received no congressional support.

b) The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944), known as the GI Bill, provided education, job training, medical care, pensions, and mortgage loans for those who had served during the war. Roosevelt’s call for social legislation was part of a plan to woo Democratic voters; the 1942 elections saw Republicans gain seats in both houses and increase their share of governorships.

c) In 1944 Roosevelt sought a fourth term because of the war; Democrats dropped Henry Wallace as vice president, as his views were seen as too extreme, and teamed Roosevelt with Harry S. Truman to run against Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

d) In the closest election since 1916, Roosevelt received only 53.5 percent of the popular vote; the party’s margin of victory came from the cities, and a significant segment of this urban support came from organized labor.

III. Life on the Home FrontA. “For the Duration”

a) People on the home front worked on civilian defense committees, collected old newspapers and scrap material, served on local rationing and draft boards, and planted “victory gardens” that produced 40 percent of the nation’s vegetables.

b) The Office of War Information (OWI) strove to disseminate information and promote patriotism; the OWI urged advertising agencies to link their clients’ products to the “four freedoms.”

c) Popular culture reflected America’s new international involvement and built morale on the home front; many movies had patriotic themes, demonstrated heroism of ordinary citizens, or warned of the dangers of fascism, while newsreels and on-the-spot radio broadcasts kept the public up-to-date on the war.

d) The major inconveniences of the war were the limitations placed on consumption: almost everything Americans ate, wore, or used during the war was subjected to rationing or regulation by the Office of Price Administration.

B. Migration and the Wartime CityThe war affected where people lived; families followed service members to training bases or points of debarkation, and the lure of high-paying defense jobs encouraged others to move. As a center of defense production, California was affected by the wartime migration more than any other state, experiencing a53% growth in population.

1. Racial Conflicta) As more than a million African Americans migrated to defense centers in

California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, racial conflicts arose over jobs and housing.

b) In Los Angeles male Latinos who belonged to pachuco (youth) gangs dressed in “zoot suits”; blacks and some working-class white teenagers also wore zoot suits as a symbol of alienation and self-assertion, but to adults and Anglos, the attire symbolized wartime juvenile delinquency.

c) In Los Angeles zoot-suiters became the target of white hostility toward Mexican Americans; in July 1943 rumors that a pachuco gang had beaten a white sailor set off a four-day riot.

2. Gay and Lesbian Community Formationa) During the war, however, cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles,

Chicago, and even Kansas City, Buffalo, and Dallas developed vibrant gay neighborhoods, sustained in part by sudden influx of migrants and the relatively open wartime atmosphere.

C. Japanese Removala) Despite some racial tension, the home front was generally calm in the 1940s;

German and Italian Americans usually did not experience intense prejudice, and leftists and Communists faced little repression after the Soviet Union became an ally.

b) The internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast was a glaring exception to racial tolerance, a reminder of the fragility of civil liberties in wartime.

c) In early 1942 Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave the War Department the authority it needed for its plan to evacuate Japanese Americans from the West Coast and intern them in relocation camps for the rest of the war.

d) The War Relocation Authority rounded up 112,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were citizens, and sent them to internment camps in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Arkansas. The Japanese

Americans who made up one-third of the population of Hawaii were not interned; the Hawaiian economy could not function without them.

e) Furloughs for seasonal workers, attendance at a college, and enlistment in the armed services were some routes out of the internment camps.

f) Nisei Gordon Hirabayashi was among the few Japanese Americans who actively resisted incarceration. A student at the University of Washington, Hirabayashi was a religious pacifist who had registered with his draft board as a conscientious objector. He challenged internment by refusing to register for evacuation; instead, he turned himself in to the FBI.

g) Tried and convicted in 1942, Gordon appealed his case to Supreme Court in Hirabayashi VS. United States (1943). In that case, and also in Korematsu VS. United States (1944), the court allowed the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast on the basis of “military necessity” but avoided ruling on the constitutionality of the internment program.

IV. Fighting and Winning the WarA. Wartime Aims and Tensions

a) The Allied coalition was composed mainly of Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and its leaders (Winston Churchill, Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin) set overall strategy.

b) Churchill and Roosevelt’s Atlantic Charter formed the basis of the Allies’ vision of the postwar international order, but Stalin had not been part of that agreement, a fact that would later cause disagreements over its goals.

c) The Russians argued for opening a second front in Europe—preferably in France— because it would draw German troops away from Russian soil.

d) In November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to open a second front in return for Stalin’s promise to fight against Japan when the war in Europe ended.

e) The delay in creating the second front meant that the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the land battle against Germany; Stalin’s mistrust of the United States and Great Britain carried over into the Cold War.

B. The War In EuropeDuring the first seven months of the war, the Allies suffered severe defeats on land and sea in both Europe and Asia. The turning point in the war came when the Soviets halted the German advance in the Battle of Stalingrad; by 1944, Stalin’s forces had driven the Germans out of the Soviet Union. In North Africa, Allied troops, under the leadership of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General George S. Patton, defeated Germany’s Afrika Korps led byGeneral Erwin Rommel. The Allied command moved to attack the Axis through Sicily and the Italian peninsula; in July 1943, Mussolini’s fascist regime fell, and Italy’s new government joined the Allies. The Allied forces finally entered Rome in June 1944, although the last German forces in Italy did not surrender until May 1945.

1. D-Daya) The invasion of France came on D-Day, June 6, 1944; under General

Eisenhower’s command, more than 1.5 million American, British, and Canadian troops crossed the English Channel.

b) In August 1944, Allied troops helped to liberate Paris; by September, they had driven the Germans out of most of France and Belgium.

c) In December 1944, after ten days of fighting, the Allies pushed the Germans back across the Rhine River in the Battle of the Bulge, the final German offensive.

d) As American, British, and Soviet troops advanced toward Berlin, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on April 30; Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945.

2. The Holocausta) As Allied troops advanced into Germany, they came upon the extermination

camps where 6 million Jews, along with 6 million other people, were put to death.

b) The Roosevelt administration had information about the camps as early as 1942, but so few Jews escaped the Holocaust because the United States and the rest of the world would not take in the Jews.

c) The War Refugee Board, established in 1944, eventually helped to save about 200,000 Jews who were placed in refugee camps in various countries.

d) Factors combining to inhibit U.S. action were anti-Semitism, fears of economic competition from a flood of immigrant refugees to a country just recovering from the depression, failure of the media to grasp the magnitude of the story and to publicize it accordingly, and the failure of religious and political leaders to speak out.

C. The War in the PacificAfter Pearl Harbor, Japan continued its conquests in the Far East and began to threaten Australia and India. In May 1942, in the Battle of the Coral Sea, American naval forces halted the Japanese offensive against Australia, and in June, Americans inflicted crucial damage on the Japanese fleet at Midway. Over the next eighteen months, General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz led the offensive in the Pacific, advancing from one island to the next. The reconquest of the Philippines began with a victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, in which the Japanese lost practically their entire fleet; by early 1945, triumph over Japan was in sight, with costly American victories at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The use of kamikaze missions, combined with the Japanese refusal to surrender, suggested to American military strategists that Japan would continue to fight despite overwhelming losses. Based on the fighting at Okinawa and Iwo Jima, American military commanders predicted millions of casualties in an invasion of Japan.

1. The Manhattan Projecta) When Harry Truman took over the presidency, he learned of the top-secret

Manhattan Project, charged with developing the atomic bomb. It cost more than $2 billion and employed 120,000 people.

b) Truman ordered the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, on August 6, and Nagasaki, on August 9.

c) At the time, the belief that Japan’s military leaders would never surrender unless their country was utterly devastated convinced policymakers that they had to deploy the atomic bomb.

d) One hundred thousand people died at Hiroshima and sixty thousand at Nagasaki; tens of thousands more died slowly of radiation poisoning.

e) Japan offered to surrender on August 10 and signed a formal treaty of surrender on September 2, 1945.

D. Planning the Postwar Worlda) When Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta in February 1945, victory in

Europe and the Pacific was in sight, but no agreement had been reached on the peace to come.

b) One source of conflict was Stalin’s desire for a band of Soviet-controlled satellite states to protect the Soviet Union’s western border.

c) Roosevelt and Churchill agreed in principle on the idea of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt pressed for an agreement that guaranteed self-determination and democratic elections in Poland and neighboring countries but, given the presence there of Soviet troops, had to accept a pledge from Stalin to hold “free and unfettered elections” at a future time.

d) Germany was to be divided into four zones to be controlled by the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union; Berlin would be partitioned among the four.

e) The Big Four made progress toward the establishment of the United Nations; its Security Council would include the five major Allied powers, plus six other nations participating on a rotating basis, and permanent members of the Security Council would have veto power over decisions of the General Assembly.

f) The United Nations was to convene in San Francisco on April 25, 1945; Roosevelt suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died on April 12, 1945.

1. Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany: Born in Austria in 1889, Adolf Hitler rose to power in German politics as leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, also known as the Nazi Party. Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and served as dictator from 1934 to 1945. His policies precipitated World War II and the Holocaust. Hitler committed suicide with wife Eva Braun on April 30, 1945, in his Berlin bunker.

2. Benito Mussolini of Italy: Born in 1883 in Dovia di Predappio, Forlì, Italy, Benito Mussolini was an ardent socialist as a youth, following in his father's political footsteps, but was expelled by the party for his support of World War I. In 1919, he created the Fascist Party, eventually making himself dictator and holding all the power in Italy. He overextended his forces during World War II and was eventually killed by his own people, on April 28, 1945, in Mezzegra, Italy.

3. Hideki Tojo in Japan: Born in 1884 and died in 1948. Hideki Tojo was Prime Minister of Japan when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place plunging the Far East into a war which was to end with the destruction of Hiroshima in August 1945. For his part in leading Japan into World War Two, Tojo was executed as a war criminal.

4. Francisco Franco in Spain: He was essentially demoted, but by 1935 he had been named chief of staff of the Spanish Army, a position he used to purge the army hierarchy of left-wing figures and strengthened military institutions. When the social and economic structure of Spain, in the governing hands of the left, began to crumble,

5. Gerald P. Nye: a U.S. Senator from North Dakota for 19 years. During his tenure, Nye gained national headlines for his leadership in several Senate investigations, including the Teapot Dome scandal and the inquiry into the business practices of munitions makers during World War I. He was a strong voice for American isolationism and vehemently opposed to U.S. involvement in World War II.

6. Neutrality Act of 1935: In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, or Senate Joint Resolution No. 173, which he calls an "expression of the desire...to avoid any action which might involve the U.S. in war."

7. Ohio Senator Robert Taft: During World War II, he warned against the tremendous growth of presidential power, which he claimed threatened the people's liberties and freedom. This same kind of criticism also brought Taft into conflict with the American government's Cold War policies after World War II. He attacked President Harry S. Truman's policy of containment of the Soviet Union, arguing that the United States was provoking Russia into a war. He vigorously opposed the Marshall Plan, designed to give billions of dollars in aid to Western Europe, as far too costly.

8. National Legion of Mothers of America: Inspired by William Randolph Hearst, and he used his newspapers to promote the group, and thus, his preference for isolationism. The mothers who joined were “grimly determined to fight any attempt to send their sons to fight on foreign soil.” The group was wildly successful, with 10,000 women signing up in Los Angeles during the first week of registration. The women sold pins featuring an American flag and white dove of peace to raise funds.

9. Popular Front: In 1935 the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern announced another change of direction. It now stressed the need for a "popular front," a movement to create political coalitions of all antifascist groups. In the United States, the Communists abandoned opposition to the New Deal; they reentered the mainstream of the trade union movement and played an important part in organizing new unions for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), for the first time gaining important positions of power in the union movement. As antifascist activists they attracted the support of many non-Communists during this period.

10. Munich Conference: A settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe, without the presence of Czechoslovakia.

11. America First Committee (AFC): Influential political pressure group in the United States (1940–41) that opposed aid to the Allies in World War II because it feared direct American military involvement in the conflict. The committee claimed a membership of 800,000 and attracted such leaders as General Robert E. Wood, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, and Senator Gerald P. Nye. Though failing in its campaigns to block the Lend-Lease Act, the use of the U.S. Navy for convoys, and the repeal of the Neutrality Act, its public pressure undoubtedly discouraged greater direct military aid to a Great Britain beleaguered by Nazi Germany.

12. Lend-Lease Action 1941: Was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. It authorized the president to transfer arms or any other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” By allowing the transfer of supplies without compensation to Britain, China, the Soviet Union and other countries, the act permitted the United States to support its war interests without being overextended in battle.

13. Atlantic Charter: The United States and Great Britain issued a joint declaration in August 1941 that set out a vision for the postwar world. In January 1942, a group of 26 Allied nations pledged their support for this declaration, known as the Atlantic Charter. The document is considered one of the first key steps toward the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.

14. War Powers Act in December 1941: American emergency law that increased Federal power during World War II. The act was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and put into law on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

15. Imperial Presidency: U.S. presidency that is has greater power than the constitution allows.16. Revenue Act of 1942: Increased individual income tax rates, increased corporate tax rates, and

reduced the personal exemption amount from $1,500 to $1,20017. War Production Board (WPB) (1942-1945): directed conversion of industries from peacetime work

to war needs, allocated scarce materials, established priorities in the distribution of materials and services, and prohibited nonessential production.

18. Henry J. Kaiser: American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyard which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel.

19. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): organization composed mainly of American blacks, but with many white members, whose goal is the end of racial discrimination and segregation.

20. Rosie the Riveter: a cultural icon representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military.

21. A. Philip Randolph: a leader in the African-American civil-rights movement, the American labor movement and socialist political parties

22. Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC): Requiring that companies with government contracts not discriminate on the basis of race or religion. It was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in the home front industry during World War II

23. John L. Lewis: leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) from 1920 to 1960. A major player in the history of coal mining, he was the driving force behind the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which established the United Steel Workers of America.

24. Smith-Connally Labor Act of 1943: allowed the federal government to seize and operate industries threatened by or under strikes that would interfere with war production, and prohibited unions from making contributions in federal elections

25. Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944: known informally as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans. Benefits included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend college, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It was available to every veteran who had been on active duty during the war years for at least ninety days and had not been dishonorably discharged; combat was not required.

26. Office of War Information (OWI): consolidate government information services and deliver propaganda both at home and abroad. OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities.

27. Pearl Harbor: The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941 brought the United States into World War II

28. Executive Order 9066: Cleared the way for the deportation of Japanese Americans to internment camps

29. General John L. DeWitt: believed that Japanese and Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington were conspiring to sabotage the American war effort, and recommended they be removed from coastal areas.

30. War Relocation Authority: forced relocation and detention of Japanese, German, and Italian Americans during World War II.

31. Hirabayashi Vs. United States (1943): the United States Supreme Court held that the application of curfews against members of a minority group was constitutional when the nation was at war with the country from which that group originated.

32. Korematsu Vs. United States (1944): a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II regardless of citizenship

33. D-Day: the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.

34. Harry S. Truman: Born in Missouri on May 8, 1884. He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice president for just 82 days before Roosevelt died and Truman became the 33rd president. In his first months in office he dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, ending World War II. His policy of communist containment started the Cold War, and he initiated U.S. involvement in the Korean War. Truman left office in 1953 and died in 1972.