Today we begin our last discussion topic in Unit II - how and why the world was embroiled in yet another world war and how and why the U.S. got involved. We can start our discussion with an excerpt from and explanation of one of the Why We Fight propaganda films directed by Frank Capra.

• What do you think was particularly effective about these films?
• Do you think such films would be effective today in convincing Americans to enter a world war? Why or why not?

If you are interested, most of these films are available online. And if you really want to learn more about American film makers who went to war to convince Americans that the fight in World War II was righteous and just, read the new book by Mark Harris, Five Came Back: A Story Of Hollywood And The Second World War or listen to an excellent interview with the author aired in March, 2014. It will give you an excellent idea of how and why the United States "sold" World War II to Americans.

Discussion Goals:

1. To briefly examine U.S. foreign policies dealing with Europe in the period after World War I.
2. To examine the Japanese, German, and Italian acts of aggression that brought Europe and Asia into WWII.
3. To understand the chronology of WWII.
4. To study the various factors that led to the American entrance into the war and to illustrate how our involvement was consistent with traditional American foreign policy.
5. To examine the consequences of WWII - both for the world and for the U.S.
6. To examine the American policies that led to the creation and maintenence of the Japanese Relocation Camps, as well as the horrific repercussions the camps had upon the internees and subsequent generations of Japanese Americans.

• Rare WWII Footage - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk3DTCOtV9w
• WWII footage - The Lost Color Archives of Hitler's Germany http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KPCl9wh1G4&feature=player_embedded#; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVA11oDOl-8&feature=related; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl4eXcoU6A0&feature=related; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itEextt7BLo&feature=related
  

1. Expanding American markets and investing capital in Europe.
   • Actions - sold American oil, autos, farm machinery, electrical equipment abroad; established American companies overseas (G.E., Ford, and Montsanto Chemical were the largest); and challenged British dominance in Middle Eastern oil fields.
   • Results - in 1919, American direct investment abroad was $3.8 billion; in 1929, it had almost doubled to $7.5 billion
2. Collecting $10 billion in war loans that European governments owed the US.
   • Action - by the late 1920s, the US agreed to cancel a large part of the debts, but also insisted on some repayment.
   • Results - growing anti-American feelings in Europe; isolationism in US.
3. Limiting production of war machinery.
   • Action - In 1921, US Secretary of State Hughes invited Britain, Japan, Italy, France, and China to Washington.  At the Washington Conference, US offered to scrap 30 warships if, in turn, Britain and Japan agreed to a 10-year moratorium on constructing new battleships and cruisers.
   • Result - two treaties were signed and agreed upon in 1922: an arms limitation agreement with the original five nations - the Five Powers Treaty; the second added four others, making it known as the Nine Power Treaty which made the Open Door Treaty with China international law (that is, allowing all nations equal rights and equal access to the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China). By 1930, the agreements broke down and competition resumed.
4. Reaching an international agreement to outlaw war.
   • Action - The Kellogg-Briand Pact formally outlawed war by relying upon the moral force of world opinion.  Pact had no powers of enforcement.
   • Result - In 1928, 63 nations signed, including U.S.  Within weeks after ratification, Congress appropriated $250 million for new battleships.

By the early 1930s, however, it appeared that more aggressive foreign policy should be considered in light of the challenge to the balance of power posed by Japan, Italy and Germany. Things were changing rapidly on the world stage - but the American public was disinterested. In the height of the depression, Americans wanted to stay out of the evolving conflicts in Europe and Asia.

• In fact, polls indicated that more than 70% of the public believed that the US had been tricked into WWI; half a million students pledged that if another war came, they would refuse to serve.
• Isolationist foreign policy, then, was the rule in the US while the balance of power was changing both in Europe and Asia. Particularly troublesome was the expansion of the Japanese empire.

• Late 1800s - Japan gained control over Taiwan.
• 1905 - Japan annexed part of Sakhalin Island that belonged to Russia.
• 1910 - Japan annexed Korea.
• 1931 - Japan established rule over all of Manchuria - the industrial region of northeast China that was especially rich in iron and coal as well as agricultural crops.
• 1937 and 1938- Japan seized more and more of coastal China, as well as Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.
• 1939 - Japan seized Shantou and Canton.
• 1940 - Japan seized Ichang, Guangzhouu, and French Indochina (current day Myanmar, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia).

These actions led to a collision course with the US. The Japanese now challenged US control over the Pacific and we were forced into a decision about China - should we abandon China or forcefully oppose further Japanese expansion?

• The US spent much of the 1930s trying to avoid making a decision - thus the rivalry grew but there was no action until Pearl Harbor.
• What finally brought about a war that most politicians now felt was inevitable was FDR's decision in July 1941 to seize all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China - current day Vietnam and Laos. After President Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in America - an action that also ended the shipping of US oil to Japan - Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. Consequently, Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil. Japan now only had enough oil to last three years; but if Japan went to war, it only had enough to last 1-1/2 years.
• Thus, in order to resume shipping, Japan would have to end its aggression in China. Instead, Japan decided to declare war on the US by bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

But by then, Europe had been at war for two years. Let's see how the war originated.

1933   Hitler and the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany. Within two years Hitler established a fascist dictatorship.

• Fascism is a type of political dictatorship in which the state, nation, and race are glorified over individual liberties and rights. Fascism, like democracy and communism, is a political system.
• Hitler's political system was a fascist dictatorship while its economic system was capitalist.

1935  Benito Mussolini - premier of Italy since 1922 - embarked upon an imperialist campaign in Northern Africa. In October, Italian troops invaded Ethiopia and formally annexed it in 1936.

• US passed the First Neutrality Act banning the sale of arms to nations at war and warning American citizens not to sail on belligerent ships.

• US passed the Second Neutrality Act banning loans to nations at war.

1937   Japan began its invasion of China, occupying Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.  The Pacific phase of WWII began.

1938   Hitler announced his intention to unify all German-speaking people and lands and create a new German empire - the Third Reich.  His first move was Anschluss with Austria - occupying and annexing it to Germany.

• British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler at the Munich Conference and accepted Germany's annexation of the Czech Sudenland in return for Hitler's promise that he would seek no more territory - known as the policy of appeasement.

1939   Germany invaded Czechoslovakia.

• Italy attacked Albania.
  • The USSR and Germany signed the Ribbonrop-Molotov Nonaggression Pact - a secret agreement that divided Poland between them and promised that one power would not fight the other.  This frees Hitler from worrying about a Soviet attack
• The European Phase of World War II began. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, beginning a Blitzkrieg, or a "lightening war" as described by reporters.  
  • On September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany. 
  • Europe divided into the Allied and Axis Powers. (On the map, the dark green nations are the allied powers who entered the war before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the orange nations are the axis powers; the light green nations are the nations that joined the allied powers after the attack on Pearl Harbor; and the gray nations remained neutral.)
• The US proclaimed neutrality
• The Manhattan Project began in which the US spent $2 billion to develop an atomic bomb based on the fission of radioactive uranium and plutonium.

1940   Mussolini had a colonial empire in Africa.

• Germany occupied most of Western Europe.
• The Soviets invaded Finland and Baltic nations.
• Japan signed the Tri-Partite Pact with Germany and Italy, a defensive treaty that confronted the US with a possible two-ocean war.
• Congress passed the Selective Service Act, the first peacetime draft in American history.  The Act initially brought 1.6 million men into the army.

1941   Congress passed the Lend Lease Act allowing the president to lend or lease supplies to any country whose defense was vital to American security.  In return for American aid, Britain agreed to open all her markets to American trade.

• In July, US froze all Japanese assets and stopped all trade - including oil (Americans being the only source of oil to Japan).
• Roosevelt and Churchill negotiated the Atlantic Charter - a set of "common principles" that promised a "better future for the world" - self government and free trade for all nations, end to territorial seizures, and abandonment of war as means to achieve ends.
• Germany invaded the Soviet Union.  Shortly thereafter, the US extended Lend-Lease aid to the Soviets.
• On December 7, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor - killing 2,300 American soldiers and sailors and wounding 1,200. 
• US entered WWII on December 8th
• On December 11th, Germany declared war on the US.

• In June, US defeated the Japanese at Midway, leaving the US in control of the Central Pacific.
• US troops invaded North Africa.

• Soviets defeated the Germans at Stalingrad.
• US forces invaded Italy.
• Leaders of the Big Three powers - US, Britain, Russia - met at the Tehran Conference to discuss the creation of a future world organization devoted to collective security at the war's end.

• US forces captured Philippines.
• Soviet forces liberated Eastern Europe.

1945   In February, the Big Three leaders met at the Yalta Conference where Stalin won several important concessions: he retained his plan for communist domination of Poland and the Balkans after the war and he was given extensive concessions in Asia, including control over Manchuria.  In return, Stalin promised to enter the Pacific war three months after Germany surrendered, to provide free elections in Poland, and to accept the temporary partitioning of Germany.

• Feb. 19 began the American assault on Iwo Jima - almost all of the 21,000 Japanese defenders on the island were killed; Americans lost one-third of their landing force (6,821) and 20,000 others were wounded.
• In late March, Allied forces advanced into Germany and Hitler commited suicide on April 30.  Shortly thereafter, the Italians captured Mussolini and hung him.
• On April 1, American forces landed on Okinawa and secured the northern part of the island.  Five days later, Americans took heavy losses along the Japanese defensive lines.  900 Japanese plans, including 300 kamikazi pilots bombed the American fleet, killing 5,000 sailors.  By the end of June, Okinawa was in American hands but the cost was enormous - 12,000 Americans died, 110,000 Japanese and 160,000 civilians died.
• April 12, FDR died and Harry Truman assumed the presidency.
• May 7, all German forces accepted unconditional surrender.  The War in Europe was over.  Allied forces began to liberate the concentration camps.
• In July, US successfully tested the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert.
• In July, Truman, Atlee, and Stalin attended the Potsdam Conference during which they demanded Japan's unconditional surrender and debated wartime reparations.  No one could agree on how to govern postwar Europe, so they divided it instead, providing for occupation zones in Germany (although they promised to treat the nation as one economic unit.)
• On August 6, US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (population of 250,000, over 100,000 of whom died and another 100,000 were injured or effected by radiation and eventually died)
• On August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan and began advancing into Manchuria.
• On August 9, US dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing almost 60,000.
• On August 14, Japan surrendered.  The War in the Pacific was over - and it is ended via the American use of the atomic bomb.

1. Americans wanted to respond to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Reality: While it is true that the US government and most Americans demanded retaliation for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it is also true that the US government wanted to enter the war in order to stop Japanese aggression in the Pacific and Asia.

2. All Americans supported the war - often known in the US at "The Good War."

Reality: While most Americans supported entering the war due to the attack on Pearl Harbor a significant amount of anti-war sentiment existed in the U.S. - but it was generally unorganized and confined to Conscientious Objectors, Jehovah's Witnesses, and thousands of individual pacifists.

• A year before the U.S. entered WWII, Congress passed the first pre-war conscription act in our history. The Selective Training and Services Act required all males between 21 and 35 to register for the draft for one year of service. When the US entered the war, the draft age was lowered to 18-38 years of age and men were called to service by age - with the oldest going first.
• About 10 million Americans were drafted into the armed forces and another 6 million enlisted during the war.
• About 72,000 men applied for CO status - 25,000 of whom entered the army as noncombatants, 12,000 who worked in civilian work camps, 20,000 whose claims were rejected, and 6,000 were imprisoned (most of whom were Jehovah's Witnesses).
• As many as 350,000 evaded the draft and an unknown number deserted. The Justice Department investigated most of these and obtained convictions of 16,000

3. The American people wanted to stamp out fascism and proove that democracy was a superior governmental system.

Reality:  While the US was more democratic than much of the world, it still held onto many undemocratic principles that favored the corporate elite at the expense of labor, as well as policies that imprisoned those who disagreed with the nation's war-time policies.

Reality:  Inequality was ingrained in American society and freedom was routinely denied many Americans.  Examples: black and white racism, sexism, Japanese relocation camps, segregation of the armed forces, separation of black and white blood donations by the Red Cross

Reality:  The U.S. was determined to not only shape the peace in Europe, but it also wanted to provide postwar economic assistance that would protect our European investments and limit Stalin's expansion into China. Additionally, two weeks before signing the Atlantic Charter, the US assured the French government that they could keep their empire intact in French Indochina, despite the Vietnamese stated desire for independence.

Reality:  The US also engaged in atrocities that "shocked the conscience of humanity."  Examples:  the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo; the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and the Japanese relocation camps.

So, why did we use the bomb to end the war?

• To bring about a quick end to the war with minimum American casualties.
• To avoid Congressional criticism for $2 billion expenditure for a bomb that was not used.
• To contain Soviet expansion in the Pacific by intimidating them with bomb's power (containment). None of Truman's major advisors wanted to rely upon Soviet entry into the war as a means for winning the war - we would have to share the spoils with Soviets.
  • Instead, the president's advisers argued, if the bomb were dropped, the U.S. would have won the war and would have a weapon to contain Stalin.
  • Ironically, after the bomb was dropped, Stalin refused to negotiate a nuclear arms control agreement, the Americans experienced less security and less moral stature through its possession and use of the bomb, and the U.S. and Soviets plunged into a cold war arms race

The bottom line is - Our entrance into the war was not dictated primarily for moral reasons or reasons of humanity, but rather by military, economic, and political reasons that would shape peace - a peace that would make America the primary power in the post war world.

• As Assistant Secretary of State Archibald MacLeish declared during the course of the war: "As things are now going, the peace we will make, the peace we seem to be making, will be a peace of oil, a peace of gold, a peace of shipping, a peace, in brief...without moral purpose or human interest..". (as quoted in Zinn, 405)
• Our decision to enter the war, then, was absolutely consistent with past foreign policy - America's goals were to emerge from the war as the strongest economic power in the world, to halt German, Japanese, and Russian imperialism while protecting our imperialistic rights; and to keep capitalism alive and well.

1. Enormous human and economic costs.
   • By the war’s end, the horrific results became known of the Final Solution, begun in 1941 to rid German-occupied Europe of Jews and other undesirables: Over 6 million Jews (nearly two-thirds of prewar Europe’s Jewish population) were systematically exterminated in concentration camps, along with an estimated 5-6 million gypsies, Catholics, homosexuals, political prisoners, and the mentally ill.
   • Destruction of human life. Somewhere between 50-70 million people, military and civilian, had been killed during the war.
   • Massive destruction of European cities and industrial centers.

   

   • The fire bombings of Japan, illustrated in the map above, killed several times as many people as the atomic bombs and devastated Japan's wooden-constructed cities. By the time the war ended, 30 percent of the residents in Japan's largest 60 cities were homeless. The map shows each Japanese city that was bombed during World War II, an American city of equivalent size, and the percentage of the city estimated destroyed by the bombings.
2. Germany was divided into occupation zones by the Allied powers as shown in the map. Additionally, Berlin - which was within the Soviet occupation zone - was divided among the Allies - also as shown in the map.
3. An "iron curtain" was drawn dividing Europe into western and eastern spheres. It expanded the USSR by installing pro-Soviet governments in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania; supporting communist governments in Albania and Yugoslavia; and barring free elections in Poland.
4. The emergence of two visions of the post war world:
   • the American/Western vision in which a strong world organization would be created to deter agression (the United Nations) and collective security would ensure that member nations would not appease future aggressor nations; and
   • the Russian vision in which the USSR would be treated as a major world power, Germany's power would be reduced through division and demilitarization; and Russia would be surrounded by "friendly" governments in neighboring east European states that embraced socialism.
   • Because we failed to understand the importance of Stalin’s world vision, leaders at Yalta divided Europe among themselves to meet their individual political needs.
     • The Soviets were in an excellent position to negotiate as the Red Army had driven Nazis out of Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Czechoslavakia and were posed to organize them as communist states;
     • Thus at Yalta, Stalin won important concessions - especially the right to dominate Poland and the Balkans, as well as control Manchuria. Remember, though, he was supposed to provide free elections in Poland and accept the temporary partitioning of Germany.
     • Instead, within a year after Yalta, Stalin: installed pro-Soviet governments in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania; supported communist governments independent of Moscow in Albania and Yugoslavia; barred free elections in Poland and brutally suppressed Polish democratic parties. These actions, in turn, stimulated the beginning of the Cold War
5. The beginning of the Cold War. The goal of Truman and his advisors to use the atomic bomb in order to stop Soviet aggression failed. Ironically, instead of bringing peace, the bomb helped to usher in a new kind of war - a cold war.
6. Americans experienced significant benefits from involvement in WWII. As we examine these benefits, it is important to weigh them against the costs: 16 million men and women served in the military during WWII. However, America was spared most of the human and all property destruction and we suffered the least military deaths - just under 300,000 - had almost no civilian casualties, and did not suffer any ruination of our cities and industrial centers. But our costs far outweighed the benefits:
   • The Depression ended as jobs became available and war time production soared. Between 1939 and 1945, the number of jobless fell from 9 million to 1 million; jobs were available to virtually anyone who wanted to work.
• Many previously unemployable Americans found new, but short-lived, job opportunities - Mexicans, Native Americans, African Americans, women.
  • The Bracero program begun - negotiated by the U.S. and Mexico in 1942, the program gave Mexicans short-term employment in jobs previously closed to them, such as shipbulding on the Pacific Coast. Over 200,000 Mexcian farm workers legally entered the U.S. to help harvest crops.
  • Nearly 75,000 Native Americans left the reservations for work in Western defense plants. The Navaho Code Talkers gained nationwide prominence.
  • The n umbers of African Americans in the industrial labor force rose from 2.9 million before the war to 3.8 million. Such benefits, however, came grudgingly. In fact, half a year after Pearl Harbor, over half of all war-related job openings were reserved for whites only. During the war, dozen of race riots occurred - the worst in Detroit on June 22, 1943 at Belle Isle Park. Four days of rioting was ended by federal troops. 25 African Americans and 9 whites died; 700 were injured; and $2 million in property damage.
  • Women were actively recruited for many jobs - especially in the defense industries. The fFemale labor force grew by over 50% to 19.5 million in 1945. The highest growth was for white women over 35 years. At war's end, 75% of women workers expressed a desire to keep working, preferably at the same job. By the summer of 1945, three-fourths of the women employed in shipbuilding and aircraft industries were let go. Jobs remaining were lower paid and less attractive.
• Capitalism remained intact and strengthened.In 1940, American corporate profits totaled $6.4 billion. By 1944, they rose to $10.8 billion. Corporate power increased dramatically. During the war, half a million small businesses folded while large businesses got larger.
• A permanent war time economy emerged. Although most Americans favored demobilization and disarmament after the war, the Truman administration worked to create an atmosphere of crisis and threat of atomic war with the Soviets that would keep a permanent alliance between business and the military going. Thus, the war not only put U.S. in a position to dominate much of the world, but it also created conditions for politicians to keep control at home.
• The role of the federal government was strengthened. War time mobilization demonstrated that massive spending and aggressive public policy could make a positive difference in the lives of Americans. Thus, the door was opened for continued experimentation with public policy to avoid future economic crises. For the first time in our history, Americans looked to the federal government to solve problems previously handled at state and local levels or in the private sector. And the powers of the presidency increased at the expense of Congress.
• The nation underwent a permanent demographic shift from rural to urban as Americans moved in greater numbers to cities where jobs were abundant.
• The GI bill was passed and helped many Americans achieve the American Dream. (See below on website). The Servicemen's Readjustment Act, or the GI Bill of 1944 offered stipends covering tuition and living expenses to veterans attending vocational schools or college. By the 1947-48 academic year, the federal government was subsidizing nearly half of all male college students.
  • Between 1945-1950, 2.3 million students benefited from the GI bill at a cost of more than $10 billion. For example, at the University of Washington, the student population of 1946 grew 50% over its prewar peak; veterans represented over 2/3 of the students.
  • These students dramatically changed college life - many were the first in their families to attend college, all were older, all had seen war, and all wanted to be treated like adults. Thus, they began to push for campus reform.
7. Creation of the United Nations and introduction of worldwide collective security.
8. Introduction of nuclear weaponry and escalation of arms race.
9. Use of U.S. policy to institutionalize racism and terrorism through the placement of Japanese Americans in "relocation" camps.

1941

Dec. 7 War with Japan.  The US declared war on Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in which 2,300 American soldiers and sailors were killed and 1,200 wounded.

A blanket presidential warrant authorized U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle to have the FBI arrest a predetermined number of "dangerous enemy aliens," including German, Italian, and Japanese nationals. 737 Japanese Americans were arrested by the end of the day.

Dec.11 FBI detained 1370 Japanese Americans classified as "dangerous enemy aliens."

1942

Jan. 5 Japanese American selective service registrants were classified as enemy aliens. Many Japanese American soldiers were discharged or assigned to menial labor.

Jan.28 The California State Personnel Board voted to bar from all civil service positions, all "descendants of natives with whom the United States [is] at war." The ruling was only enforced against Japanese Americans.

Feb. 4 The US Army established 12 "restricted areas" placing enemy aliens on a 9 pm to 6 am curfew and allowing travel only to and from work.

Feb.14 General De Witt, commander of the Western Defense during WWII, submitted a memorandum to War Department recommending the mass evacuation of the Japanese.

Feb. 19 Executive Order No. 9066, authorized by FDR, permitted the War Department to prescribe Military Areas for Japanese relocation, to evacuate any or all persons from these areas, and to relocate them in internment camps. The only significant opposition came from the Quakers and the American Civil Liberties Union.

March Executive Order.  Established the War Relocation Authority (WRA), a civilian agency to administer the military evacuation and internment. On March 24, General De Witt issued the first of 108 separate orders moving all persons of Japanese ancestry to the prescribed Military Areas, and prohibiting them from refusing to move or to leave the areas.

Aug. 7 All persons of Japanese ancestry had been removed to internment camps, approximately 120,000 people from California, Oregon, and Washington.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed, consisting entirely of Asian Americans.  By the war's end, it was one of the most decorated units in US military history - about 14,000 men served, ultimately earning 9,486 Purple Hearts, 21 Medals of Honor, and an unprecedented eight Presidential Unit Citations.

1943

June  Hirabayashi v. US.  Gordon Hirabayashi, a senior at the University of Washington, challenged military evacuation and curfew orders and was arrested, convicted and jailed.  Hirabayashi argued that the orders were an unconstitutional delegation of power and that to them only against citizens of Japanese ancestry amounted to a constitutionally prohibited discrimination solely on account of race. Supreme Court upheld the curfew order as a legitimate exercise of governmentís power to take steps necessary to prevent espionage and sabotage in an area threatened by Japanese attack.

Yasui v. U.S.  In late 1942, Minoru Yasui, an Oregon lawyer, was arrested for violating curfew orders.  His lawyers argued the government's restrictions were unconstitutional because they were based upon racial prejudice, not military necessity.  The Supreme Court unanimously ruled the government could restrict the lives of civilian citizens during wartime.  After spending 9 months in solitary confinement, Yasui was released to an internment camp at Minidoka.

1944

Jan.20 Secretary of War Stimson announced that Japanese Americans were eligible for the draft.

July 18 In Cheyenne, Wyoming, a federal district court convicted 63 men from Heart Mountain internment camp of draft resistance and sentenced them to 3 years in federal penitentiary.   Seven other leaders and newspaper editor James Omura were arrested for conspiracy to encourage draft resistance.

July 29 Federal judge dismissed indictments against 26 Tule Lake draft resisters, declaring "It is shocking... that an American citizen be confined on the ground of disloyalty, and then... be compelled to serve in the armed forces, or be prosecuted for not."

Nov. James Omura was acquitted, but the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee leaders were sentenced to three years imprisonment for conspiracy.  In January 1945, the Court of Appeals reversed the conspiracy convictions of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee leaders on technical grounds, but they remained in prison until March, 1946.

Dec.14 Korematsu v. US.   The Supreme Court considered only the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the exclusion order was constitutional and that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu's individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. The opinion concluded in part, "Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast ..., because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and finally, because Congress ... determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great and time was short. We cannot, by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight, now say that these actions were unjustified."

Dec.19 In Ex Parte Mitsuye Endo the US Supreme Court found that regardless of whether the US government had the right to exclude people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast during the war (as had been decided days earlier in Korematsu v. U.S.), they could not continue to detain a citizen that the government admitted was loyal to the United States. Thus, Endo could no longer be retained in a relocation center and should immediately "be given her liberty."  Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Murphy declared: "I am of the view that detention in Relocation Centers of persons of Japanese ancestry regardless of loyalty is not only unauthorized by Congress or the Executive, but is another example of the unconstitutional resort to racism inherent in the entire evacuation program...racial discrimination of this nature bears no reasonable relation to military necessity and is utterly foreign to the ideals and traditions of the American people." Within 48 hours, the government announced that all mass exclusion orders would be revoked and effective January 2, 1945, at which time the Japanese Americans could go home.

1946 In March, the last Japanese Relocation Camp was closed down.

1948  In Oyama v. California, the Supreme Court struck down the Alien Land Laws as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1952   The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act ended racially-based naturalization ban and nullified the 1790 Naturalization Act which required that anyone who was to become a naturalized citizen of the US had to be a "free white person." The Act was amended, "The right of a person to become a naturalized citizen...shall not be denied or abridged because of race or sex or because such person is married."

1969 First Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage began when a group of about 150 people, mostly young, mostly Japanese Americans, drove by car and bus to Manzanar.

1972 After a year-long campaign led by the Manzanar Committee and the Japanese American Citizens League, Manzanar was designated California State Historic Landmark #850.

1976   President Gerald Ford rescinded Executive Order No. 9066.

1978   The Japanese American Citizen's League formed a Redress Committee which proposed that the U.S. government acknowledge their mistake and asked for $25,000 redress for each internee.
 
1980  Congress approved and President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 96-317 that established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians.

1983   Report of the Commission of Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians - Personal Justice Denied - concluded that exclusion, expulsion and incarceration were not justified by military necessity; such decisions were based on racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.  The Commission recommended monetary compensation to each surviving internee of $20,000.

The Hirabayashi, Yasui, and Korematsu (seen below) cases were reopened in 1983 by a group of mostly Japanese American attorneys on the basis of newly uncovered documents showing that the government knew Japanese Americans did not pose a security threat but hid that information from the court. The convictions were overturned by the Federal District Court of San Francisco with the court finding that the government was guilty of misconduct during the trial by intentionally withholding documents from multiple federal intelligence agencies clearly acknowledging that Japanese Americans posed no military threat to the U.S.

1988   The Civil Liberties Act called for the U.S. government to issue individual apologies for all violations of civil liberties and constitutional rights and too issue $20,000 tax-free payments to each internment survivor.  Congress allocated $1.2 billion.  Signed into law in 1989 by President Bush.

1990 Reparation payments began for each surviving internee.  Eventually 60,000 survivors received payments.

1992 Manzanar was designated as a National Historic Site. The 23rd Annual Pilgrimage to Manzanar, held on April 25, 1992, brought more than 2,200 participants to celebrate the designation.

1998   During a White House Ceremony, President Bill Clinton honored Fred Korematsu for pursuing his plea of innocence for 56 years by presenting him with the Medal of Freedom.

2000   In June, the seven surviving members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team received the nation's top honor for bravery - the Medal of Honor - at Arlington National Cemetary.

2001  In June, a national monument was unveiled in Washington, D.C. and dedicated to Japanese American veterans of WWII and to people of Japanese descent who were forced into internment camps.

2003  In February, Representative Howard Coble (Republican, NC and Chairperson of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and homeland Security) made a comment on a radio talk show that he agreed with FDRs decision to intern Japanese Americans during WWII in order to preserve the nation's security. "We were at war.  They [Japanese Americans] were an endangered species.  For many of these Japanese Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street."

2004  On September 16th, Fred Korematsu wrote an article for the San Francisco Chronicle in response to the statement made by Fox News media personality Michelle Malkin who claimed that because some Japanese Americans were spies during WWII, their internment was not such a bad idea.  She then continued that racial profiling of Arab Americans was similarly justified by the need to fight terrorism.  His article ends, "I know what it is like to be at the other end of such scapegoating and how difficult it is to clear  one's name after unjustified suspicions are endorsed as fact by the government.  If someone is a spy or terrorist they should be prosecuted for their actions.  But no one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist.  If that principle was not  learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy."

Manzanar opens it Interpretive Center. In addition to telling the story of the concentration camp experience, the exhibit covers the history of pre-camp communities which lived on the land, such as the Owens Valley Paiute, farmers, rancher and miners.

2005  As a result of legislation sponsored by California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber and passed in 2004 allowing high school districts to give diplomas to internees, 400 total people had received their diplomas, some of them posthumously.

2010 Honorary Degrees were awarded at UCLA to Former Japanese American students.

In September California passed the Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties bill, creating the first day in U.S. history to be named after an Asian American. Starting on Jan. 30, 2011 of each year, schools are encouraged to teach Korematsu's story and why it remains so relevant today.

2011 Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal issued an official Confession of Error, admitting that the office was wrong in defending the country's war-time internment policy in the two U.S. Supreme Court decisions involving Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu

2012 Soji Kashiwagi wrote a letter, publicized by the Manzanar Committee, protesting President Obama's signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on Dec. 31, 2011. The letter reads, in part: "The words, 'authorization to order the U.S. Military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial, civilians, including American citizens' and 'suspected' sends a chill down my spine. These words became a tragic reality for 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II, when President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 authorized the U.S. military to forcibly remove American citizens, without cause or due process, and imprison them in ten desolate concentration camps located in the badlands of America - for over three years. It wasn’t until many years later that these 'suspected' citizens were found to be innocent and this completely unnecessary - and unconstitutional - action against them has been proven to be a massive civil rights disaster unprecedented in American history."

1. Most Japanese lost their homes, ancestral heirlooms, clothing and furniture, land, and businesses before entering the camp, so their long-term physical, emotional, economic, and social stability was uncertain. (Losses of the Japanese internees' homes and businesses were valued at $500 million in 1945 dollars.)
2. Internees were subjected to a life of want, little privacy, and living with the unknown which dramatically affected their emotional and physical well-being.
3. Families were internally dislocated due to lack of privacy, eating in mess halls in groups, and policies that divided them into so-called "good" and "bad" internees.
4. The authority and dignity of Japanese parents was eroded.
5. After the war, almost 6,000 Japanese Americans renounced their U.S. citizenship to protest their treatment as American citizens during the war.

These losses and the war had profound and deep psychological effects that forever changed their lives.  As one scholar has written:

"It must not be forgotten... that thousands of Japanese Americans had their lives destroyed and were never able, for one reason or another, to recover.  There can be no more poignant evidence of that human waste and of manís inhumanity to man than the fact that thousands of exiles, persons who had been part of a free and self-supporting community, were so shattered by their wartime treatment at the hands of their own government that they literally had to be evicted from concentration camps."   (Daniel, 1993:87.)

1. In the pre-war years, the US sought at least five goals for its foreign policy: expanding American markets and investing capital in Europe; collecting the approximate $10 billion in war loans that European governments owed the US; recovering $33 billion in reparation from the German Government; limiting production of war machinery; and reaching an international agreement to outlaw war.
2. Japanese, German, and Italian aggression in Europe and Asia were largely responsible for the beginning of World War II.
3. American entrance into World War II was dictated not by moral reasons of humanity, but by military, economic, and political reasons that would help the US shape the peace and make America the primary power in the post war world.  Such reasons were consistent with past American foreign policy.
4. The war in the Pacific ended with the American use of the atomic bomb, which in turn, was dropped to end the war with minimum American casualties, to contain Soviet expansion in the Pacific by intimidating them with the bomb's power, and to thwart Congressional criticism for $2 billion in expenditures for the bomb.
5. Despite the horrific human and economic costs of World War II, the US emerged quite strong.  However, because American leadership underestimated the vision and power of Joseph Stalin, the USSR also emerged quite powerful.  Consequently, the end of WWII led to the beginning of the Cold War between the western block of nations and the Soviet Union and its satellite nations.
6. The United States government used both propaganda and art throughout World War II to keep Americans united for the war effort, angry at a common enemy, and informed of exactly what information they wanted the American public to know.
7. The United States government was fully behind the creation and maintenance of Japanese relocation camps - camps that were later found to be unconstitutional in their origin and composition.
8. The unconstitutionality of the camps was based largely on the fact that the rights of American citizens were denied, and that even in times of a national emergency, the suspension of such rights is not allowable.  This is a lesson that must be remembered as we enter the 21st Century.