America and World War 2
American industry had to support the nation's Allies as well as its own military expansion. Britain needed large amounts of munitions and equipment; and lend-lease aid, including tens of thousands of trucks and other vehicles and equipment, played an important part in mechanizing the Soviet Army. Amphibious warfare required large numbers of landing craft and support vessels, yet to be built. The first U.S. troops arrived in the British Isles in January 1942, but nearly a year passed before they went into action against the Axis. Meanwhile, air power provided The following story would be a great case study for Memory Hole 101 (second semester). I stumbled onto it about three years ago. It was on the Website of a local affiliate of NBC television. That Web page is long gone, but because of www.google.com, I was able to track down other pages in a few minutes. I used these search terms: Japanese, Germans, Peru, World War II, Texas, camps. Of course, had I not found that NBC affiliate site three years ago, I never would have known which search terms to use. I never would have known about this story. Prepare yourself for a shock. This is from the Handbook of Texas Website. Its title is "World War II Internment Camps" And what remarkable camps they were! You will find no reference to these camps in any textbook on U.S. history, I guarantee youvirtually the only means for the Allies to strike at Germany. The Royal Air Force began its air offensive against Germany in May 1942, and on 4 July the first American crews participated in air raids against the Continent.
In early 1942 British and American leaders reaffirmed the priority of the European theater. General Marshall argued for an immediate buildup of American forces in Great Britain, a possible diversionary attack on the Continent in the fall, and a definite full-scale invasion in 1943. The British greeted this program with caution. Remembering the enormous casualties of World War I, they preferred to strike at German power in the Mediterranean, rather than risk a direct confrontation in haste. Although acknowledging the eventual necessity for an invasion of France, they hoped to defer it until much later. Instead, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill suggested Anglo-American landings in North Africa, bringing the French armies in France's colonies there back into the war on the side of the Allies and aiding the British in their fight against the Italians and the forces of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Months of lively debate followed, but ultimately President Roosevelt directed General Marshall to plan and carry out amphibious landings on the coast of North Africa before the end of 1942Most Americans know about the concentration camp system that the United States created for Japanese residents of the West Coast. There were 120,000 of these internees in a dozen camps, mostly in the mountain states, but with two camps in eastern Arkansas. A few Americans know that the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover had opposed these mass arrests. Fewer still know of the forced sale of everything these people owned at substantial discounts.
They were only allowed to bring into the camps what they could carry in their arms in one trip. But until this year, only a handful of Japanese-Americans knew that in 1944, the U.S. government drafted the young men housed in these camps, and about 300 refused to be inducted. They said they were prisoners who were not being treated as citizens, which they were. So, some of them were put in jail for draft resistance, and the others became pariahs in the camps. The other Japanese internees regarded them as traitors. This story became public knowledge only this year, in law professor Eric Muller's book, Free to Die for Their Country (University of Chicago Press, 2001). You can get chapter one on the Web.This blog is on the america and the world war two and why it apped and what toke place in the wars they droped bombs on them and when it toke place.
