Bryn O'Callaghan _____ www.longman.c

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THE AR S ENAL OF D EM O CR A C Y

In the !9j Os every yc,u seemed to bri ng a new war,o r threat ofwar. somewhere in the wo rld . Lead erslike th e: (;,..-rman dictator Hitler threatened andbuiln-d. N ations bu ilt more tanks. warshi ps andmilitary aircraft. Pn..-sjdcnr Roosevelt spoke to rhcAmerican people in 1937 about wars being fought III

Spa in and China. "I nn ocent peoples. innocentnat ions arc being cruel ly sacr ificed to J greed fo rpower and supn..-mac v." he warn ed . " If these thingsCOIll \.' to P ;ISS [happ en! in othe r parts of the worl d. letno one ill1 ,l ~il1 c that America w ill escape."

13 m Spain and C hina seemed far away. MostAmericalls igno red Roosevelt 's wa rning. T heybelieved that th e best thin g to do \\' ,IS to let foreignerssolve their problems themselves. lsolaricnisrs fd t rhisparricularlv strongly. These were people whobelieved rhar Amc ricans should try to cu t olT, or"isola te." rhc U nited Stat es from rhc problems o f theOlltsidt' world.

Iso lationist ide as were \Try strong in Congressduring rhc 19.30s. It passed a number o flaws calledN eutrality Acrs . Thcse said that Amer ican citizenswo uld not be allowed to sell militar y equ ipment, o rlend money, to any nations at w ar. Evennon­military supp lies such as foods tuff s would be sold to

warr ing count ries only if th ey paid cash to r them andcollected them in their o wn ships.

Then. in 1939, war broke om in Europe. Uy thesummer of 19-10 Hitler's arm ies had overrun all ofwestern Europe, O nly Urirain <cxbausrcd and sho rtof weap on s- still de fied them. With Hitler the mas terof Euro pe, and his ally. Ja pan, becoming everstronger ill Asia, Americans saw at las t the dangerouspos ition of rhc U nit ed States, sand wiched betweenthe two .

Roosevelt had already persuaded Congress toap pro vt' rhc Iirvt peace time mi litary conscription inAm erican histo ry and to suspen d th e N curralieyActs. Now he scm Britain all the mil itary t'qu lpmentth at the Un ited Stares could sparcc rifles. gUlls.ship s. Early ill 19-1 1 the British ran our o f mone y. InM arch Roosevelt persuaded Congress to accepr hisLen d Lease PLIn.

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The Issei and the NiseiIn the carlv 1940s more than 100 ,01,0 people o fjapanese descent lived in the United States. T hesejapanese Americans we re either "I ssei" - thoseborn in japan-or " N isei" - American-born Jap­anese. Most lived in California . where th ey hadworked hard and been successful. By 11)-1 1, forexample. Issei were producing half of California 'sfruit and veget ables. O thers became successfuldoctors, lawyers. and businessmen .

After the attac k on Pear! Harbor white Americansbegan to see eve ry j apanese Ameri can as apot ent ial spy or saboteur. Both Issei and Ni seiwe re threatened and treated badly. Sho ps refusedto sell them food . Finally, in March 1942. thegovernment sent soldie rs to cake them from theirho mes [Q be in terned in prison cam ps called" relocation centers. "

Most of the mtcmmenr cdmps were III remote.desert areas of the country. O ver )IX),IX>O j apan es eAmerican men , women and children were kept inthem lor the (es t of the war. In later yedrs theAmerican C ivil Libemcs Union called their in­tcm mcnr " the worst sing k- violation of the civilrigh ts of American citizens III our histo ry ."

The in ternment o f the Issei and the Ni sei wasmore than unj ust. All the evidence seems to showthat it was llllllt'cessdry. Thousands o f Ni sei foug htbravely in the American arm y. And not onej apanese Am eri can was con victed ofan act of dis­loyalty to the United Stares during rhc whole ofthe W J.T ,

Lend Lease gave Roosevelt the Tight to supplymili tary equi pment and other goods to Brnainwi tho ut payment . He could do the same for dnycountry w hose defense he considered occcsserv (Q thesafet y 011ht, Uni ted Stares. Am erican gu ns, food and~l ircraft crossed th e Atla nt ic Ocean in large quanti ties.T hey played a viral pan in helping Britain tocont inue to tight agamse Hitler. When I{itlcr attacked

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the Sov iet U nion in june IY41, Roosevelt used rhcL\:m{ Lease scheme to send aid to the Russians, too.

Fighting was also taking place in Asia at this time.japanese forces had invaded Man churia III 1931 andC hina in )lJ37, In July 19·H, they also occu pied theFrench colony o flndoch ina. This alarmed th eAmerican government. h saw the growing power ofjapan as a threat both to peace in Asia and to

Am erican trading in terests. Ever since the 1937att ack on China the United States had been reducingits t'xport~ to J apan ofgoods tha t wert' useful inwar - aircra ft and che micals. fo r exam ple. N ow , injuly IlJ4l , it sto pped all shipments o f oil.

j apan fared disaster . It imported 80 percent ofits o ilfro m th o: United States, Witho ut this Americ:In oil itsindustries would be paralyzed . "japan IS like a tish III

a pond fro m which the wan-t IS being drained awa y.'a senior naval officer told Empero r l Iirohiro .

In O ctober. General Hidoki Toj o became j apan'sPrime Minister. T oj o was well known for his belieftha t a sharp USt' afforce W:IS often rhc bcsr way tosolve disagreements. This had earned him .nickname- the Razor. T he re was plen ty ofoil inSoutheast Asia. Tojo decided that japan mus t seize

it-and must make it impossible for the Americans to

usc their Pacific battle Nl'l't to stop them .

( ) II Decem bcr 7, 1941 , j apanese warplanes roaredinover Pearl I lnrbor. Hawaii, the America n navy'smain base in the Pacific Ocean. Their bombs andtorpedoes sank or badly damaged eight Americanbattleships, blew up hund reds ofaircraft and killedover 1,000 men.

Whcn the Pear l Harbor attack took place, the U nitedStates and Japan were still at peace, T he United Staresdeclared war 0 11 December R. 1941. Since Germ anywasj apan 's ally. Hitler then declared war on theUnited Scan-s. T he wa r in Europe and the war in Asiabecame one war. Britain, the Soviet Union and theUnited States (the Allies) were the mam count ries ono ne side. Germany and j apan (the Ax is) were themain countr ies on the other,

Th e United Stares govern ment orga nized the wholeAmer ican eco nom y towards winn ing the war. Itplaced controls on wages and prices, and Int roducedhigh income taxes. Gasoline and some foods wererationed . Factories stopped producing consumergoods such as automobiles and wash ing machines.and started making tanks, bombers and other wa r

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TWENTIETH CH.n:IlY A ..IlItICASS

failed. By the end ofJuly Allied soldiers were racmgacross France. Paris was libe rated on August 24 andby September Allied forces had crossed Ccnuauy'swcsrcru border.

Hut the Germ ans were not vcr beaten. In I )e(·t'mberI(}44, they launched a last f ie rce attack in ti ll'Arden nes region o f Ud gium. They punched back theAllied fro nt line in a bul ge many miles deep. Thisgavc rhe batt le its name -the Batt le ofthe Bulge. Itwas a mo nth befo re the Allies could organize aroun rcrartack and drivc back [he Germans.

T he Battle of the Bulge proved to be" the last Germano ffensive of the Second World War. On Ap ril 25.1(}45, British and Am erican soldiers met ad vancingSoviet troops O il the banks of the River Elbc in themiddle ofGerm any. O n Apr il 30 Hitler shot himsel f.German soldier s cvcrvwhcrc laid down th eir\\·l'apons and o n May 5, 1945. Germany surrende red .

In th e: Pacific j apanes e armed forces won somestr iking early victories. In only a few mo nt hs theyo verran Southeast Asia and the Islands of[he westernPacific. By the: sum mer of 1942 [hey had co nque redover 1.5 million square mile s of land, rich in rawmaterials and inh abi ted by more than 100 m illionpeop le, Th e conq uered lands included rhcPhilippines, where thousands of American troo pswe re t rapped and forced to surrender,

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IV"",,.,,IMi"j"t I,' b"ild ~;rmlJi dur;tls til.. "uo"d H'orld War,

Allied war planners agreed to co ncent rate 011

dctcaring Germany fi rst, In 1942 the Sov iet Unio nwas under heavy attack by the Ger mans . To help theRussians, American generals reco mmended an earlyinvasion o f German-occupicd France. Hut WinstonC hurchill, the Uritish Prime Mi nis ter. persua dedRoosevelt to attack the Germans first in theMediterranean region. Combined American andBritish forces Landed III North Africa III N ove mber1942, and joined orhcr British forces already figh tingthere, Togcrhcr. the Allied armies defeated theGerman genera l Ho mmel's Afrika Korps. In ]1)43they invaded Sicily and the mainland of Italy . Aftermont hs of bitter fighting. on June 4, 1944. they freedRome from German control.

T wo days later. on June 6_ Allied troops invadedNormandy in German-occupied Prance. TheirSupreme Comm ander was rhc American gene ralEisenhower. The invasion was code-namedOperation O verlord. T he day it took place wasreferr ed to as li-Dav - D for l Ichvcrancc. Fro m earlyin the mor nm g o f I )- J.)ay hund reds ofAllied landingcraft emptied their loads o f men and weapons 0 11 tothe tla t Norma nd y beaches. Germ an soldiers foughthar d to push the invaders in to the sea. But they

supp lies. T he government also Spl'nt a vastamount- two thousand million dollars-on a top­secret research scheme. The scheme was code-namedthe Manhattan Project. By 1945 scientis ts working0 11 rhc scheme had produced and tested th e world'sfirst atomic bomb,

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Hiroshima 1945: right or wrong?At fifteen minutes past eight on the morn ing ofAugust 6, lIN:; , an American ll2'J bomber droppedan atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Forty­five seconds later the bomb exploded ill a blindingflash. A mush roo m-shaped cloud climbed highinto the sky above the city. Belew. where Hiro­shima had been, burned a ball of fire. 11 was umofeet across and the temperanlrt' at its center was100 million degrees. " The war's o va!.. shou tedone of the bomber's crew. " My God," saidanother, "what have we do ne?"

President T rum an ordered the atomic bo mb to beused. I II.' believed that using it save d lives byen din g the war quickly . At the rime. and since.people haw argued fiercely about whether he w asrigh t. Some be lieve that he was. Without l liro­shima, they say, the Americans would have had toinvade Japan to end the war. Ma ny mo re peoplethan died at Hiroshim a and Nagasaki, bothJapanese and American, would eben havc beenkilled. Other people do not accept [his reasoning.They argue that the Japanese government wasready to surrender before the bombi ngs. Morethan half a century after the destruction ofHiroshima. the argument still continues.

Japan 's first setback r-amo in May 1'J-12. In the Battleof the Cor al Sea. aircraft from Am erican carr iersdrove back a big japanese invasion fleet that wasthrvnrcni ng Aust ralia. ln j unc rhcjapancsc sutf-redall even wo rse defeat. T heir main bailie Ill-t,t attackedan im po rtant American base called Midway Island.Again American warplanes heat them off with heavylosses. In the Battle of Midway the japanese lost louraircraft carriers and many of their best pilots.

By the beginning of 19-13 the Amcricnnv ami theirAustralian and British allies had ag reed upon a long­term plan to de feat the Jap anese. They decided on athree-pron ged att ack. Fro m Au stralia one prong'would push northwards towardsJap an th rough thePhilippines. From Hawaii another pron g wouldstrike wes twa rds through rhe islands o f rhc centralPacific. Finally, th e tWOPacific offem in's would besupported by a drive throu gh Hurma into the landsthat thejapan ese had conq uered III Sou theas t Asia_

25 T H E AR~EN .\l. Of 1h:.\\OCHACY

ByJ UIll' 1'-)-13, the Pacific offensives had begun .American forces advanced toward sJapan by "is landhopping" -that is, they captu red Islands that weresrr arcgicallv im portant, but by passed others. In therem aind er of 1l)-1J and throughout 19-1-1, Alliedforces fought their way closer to Japan itself. InJ lineI'N-1. an enormo us American task force won cont rolof the important Marian a Islands. In O ctoberAm erican troops returned to the Philippines andcur offJapan from its conqucst s III Southeast Asia.

By 19-15Japan was w ithin ran ge o f air attacks .Ame rican bombers made devastatin g raids on itscities. ln j unc the island o f Okinawa , less than 375mi les from the Japanese coast, fell to the Americans.Am erican troops prepared to invade Japa n itself.

But the invasion ne ver came. O n July Ifl, 11)-15.Alhed scientists at work o n the Ma nhatt an Projecttested the world's first atomic bomb. Even they wereshocked by the result . T hey had inven ted the mostdestructive Wl..'apo n the world had ever seen . OnAugust 6 an American bomber dropped an atomicbomb ove r rhc japancsc cit y of HIroshima. A fewdays late r, on August 9, a second ato mic bomb wasdropped on rhc city of N agasaki . Both cines werede vastated and nearly ~OO,OOO civi lians we re- killed.On August 1-1 rhejapanese government surrendered .The Second Worl d War 'was o ver.

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