January 24—What is your goal for this semester?

January 24—What is your goal for this semester?

US entry into WWII

Lecture Outline

I. U.S. entry into WWII

A. The China Incident

B. U.S. prepares for war

C. Japan prepares for war

D. Pearl Harbor

E. Japanese Internment

Key Terms

The China Incident Two-Ocean Naval Act of 1938 Pearl Harbor

The China Incident In July 1937 a fight between the Chinese and

Japanese troops in Beijing was used an excuse by Japan to attempt to gain hegemony over all over China.

This marked a turning point in American policy.

President Roosevelt turned to a more clearly internationalist course. He hoped to keep the U.S. out of war but not at the expense of the U.S. foreign policy interests.

Effects of the China Incident

The U.S. did not want to be cut-out of the China market.

Roosevelt viewed Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists as a force that one day could bring democracy to China.

U.S. leaders realized that a Japanese victory in China could threaten U.S. possessions in the Pacific.

U.S. Prepares for War

The Two-Ocean Naval Act of 1938 greatly increased naval construction.

In 1938 Japan proclaimed its plan for a “New Order” for East Asia, claiming that the Open Door Policy no longer applied in China.

The Pacific Fleet was moved from California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

U.S. Prepares for War

In 1939 the U.S. terminated the Japanese-American commercial treaty of 1911, thereby opening the way for economic sanctions against Japan.

After Poland’s defeat Congress passed the “Cash and Carry Act.”

FDR was elected for his third term in 1940.

U.S. Prepares for War

After the election, Congress appropriated over $10 billion for military defense and passed the first peacetime military conscription law in U.S. history.

“If we want to keep out this war, the longer we keep the Allies going, that much longer we stay out of this war.” In September 1940 Britain granted the U.S.

long-term leases to 6 Western Hemisphere bases, and gave two others free, in exchange for 50 U.S. WWI destroyers.

The eight bases strengthened the ability of the U.S. to defend the Western Hemisphere.

This marked the end of U.S. neutrality.

Lend-Lease Act

In December 1940 declared in a radio address that the U.S. must become “the great arsenal of democracy.”

In March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was passed which allowed the U.S. to lend or lease materials to the Allies with payment to be worked out later.

The U.S. gave the Allies around $50 billion worth of goods.

U.S. Prepares for War In July 1941 the American Navy began to

convoy British shipping loaded with lend-lease as far as Iceland.

In September the destroyer the USS Greer was attacked by a German submarine. Roosevelt gave the US Navy orders to attack German submarines.

In October, the Germans attacked the destroyer Kearney and sank the Reuben James.

U.S. Prepares for War

In November Congress authorized the arming of merchant ships and their entry into the war zones.

Japan Prepares for War

By the spring of 1940 the Japanese concluded that the U.S. would gain naval hegemony in the Pacific by 1942, and that Japan must have access to the oil of the Dutch East Indies in order to cope with U.S. power.

In 1941 Japan signed a neutrality pact with the USSR.

In July 1941 Japanese troops moved into French Indochina.

Japan Prepares for War

The U.S. responded by banning oil exports to Japan and freezing all Japanese assets in American thereby ceasing all trade between the 2 countries.

The Dutch and the British did the same. In December the U.S. gave the Nationalist

Chinese a $100 million loan and promises of military aid in their fight against Japan.

Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941 a Japanese carrier task force unleashed a destructive aerial attack against the Pacific Fleet and nearby naval and military installations.

5 battleships, 3 cruisers, and lesser warships were sunk or heavily damaged.

The Japanese destroyed 188 aircraft and killed approximately 3,000 men.

Japanese Internment

FDR ordered a secret investigation of Japanese Americans before Pearl Harbor.

The investigation found that the Japanese-Americans were loyal and that there was no “Japanese problem.“

This investigation was kept secret and ignored.

Japanese Internment

Executive Order 9066 was issued by FDR in Feb. 1942

112,000 people of Japanese descent (71,000 were American citizens) on the West Coast were imprisoned in 10 internment camps.

They lost $350 million worth of property. US said they were trying to protect the

Japanese from violence and that it was military necessity.

Korematsu v. US

In Dec. 1944 the Supreme Court upheld the evacuation on the ground that the military leaders are justified in taking extreme measures against persons on account of race to protect national security.

Japanese Internment

No act of treason was ever proven during the war against a person of Japanese ancestry.

Many Japanese-Americans fought with great distinction in segregated units in Europe and as interpreters in the Pacific.

In 1988 Congress apologized an paid each survivor $20,000.