AIM AIM What role did the US play

AIM: AIM What role did the US play in winning the war in the Pacific, and how did it affect future foreign relations?

Japanese internment n. In the entire course of the war, 10 people were convicted of spying for Japan, all of whom were Caucasian. n. Roosevelt interned 120, 000 Japanese n 2/3 were American citizens and had never shown disloyalty n KOREMATSU V. UNITED STATES

Korematsu v. United States > What did you find out from your homework? • Fred Korematsu was born in Oakland, CA to parents that immigrated from Japan • Ordered to report on May 9, 1942 to soon be moved to an internment camp • He refused to go, was arrested a few weeks later • Sent to a camp in Utah • His case went to the Supreme Court • Korematsu received a lawyer from the ACLU

The Supreme Court decision • In a 6 -3 ruling, the Supreme Court declared the camps constitutional • All 6 judges who favored were appointed by FDR In your opinion, did the Court make the right decision? Effects of the Case • In times of war and crisis, personal liberties decrease • Also seen where? (SYNTHESIS) • Alien and Sedition Acts – Quasi War – John Adams • The Civil War – Lincoln suspends habeas corpus • World War I – Schenck v. US • Cold War – 2 nd “Red Scare

War in the Pacific • 1942: Major US victory at Midway Island US takes out Japanese aircraft carriers • Strategy of Island Hopping: • bypass some islands controlled by Japanese and attack specific islands; • obtain air bases in an effort to bomb Japan more efficiently and to build up forces in an effort to invade Japan.

Next, “Island-hopping” allowed the Allies to win strategic islands without investing precious time, resources, & American lives In the Pacific, U. S. victory at Midway (1942) gave the Allies naval supremacy

The Japanese refused to play according to the Geneva Convention “rules” of war

The German surrender in May 1945, allowed the U. S. to turn its full attention towards Japan Victories at Saipan in 1944 & Iwo Jima & Okinawa in 1945 allowed for bombings on Japan

The Decision to Drop the A-Bomb • But with no definitive end it sight, how would the Allies defeat Japan? • The Japanese refused to surrender & were arming civilians for an Allied invasion… • At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, Truman gave the order to use the atomic bomb

Albert Einstein’s Letter In the course of the last four months it has been made probable - through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America - that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable - though much less certain - that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air. . . Yours very truly, (Albert Einstein)

April 24, 1945 Dear Mr. President, Letter to Harry Truman I think it is very important that I should have a talk with you as soon as possible on a highly secret matter. I mentioned it to you shortly after you took office but have not urged it since on account of the pressure you have been under. It, however, has such a bearing on our present foreign relations and has such an important effect upon all my thinking in this field that I think you ought to know about it without much further delay. Faithfully yours, Henry Stimson Secretary of War

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. To disguise this ultra-secret Manhattan Project, the Corps created a Manhattan Engineer District, withmade a The atomic bomb the headquarters initially based in New York of City. prospect future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country. Enrico Fermi at the - Robert Oppenheimer University of Chicago (physicist who developed the nuclear reactor)

World War II was coming to an end. In the Pacific, Japan was in retreat. It had lost most of the lands it had conquered. The fighting became harder as What should Truman the Americans came closer to Japan because manydo? Japanese soldiers would rather What die fighting The Emperor revered told them arethan thesurrender. pro’s and con’s they of using soldiers who died in battle would have a glorious afterlife. Japanese suicide atomic warfare during WWII? pilots called “kamikazes” sank American ships by crashing their planes into them. It looked as though the Japanese would have to be subdued by a massive invasion. It would be difficult to attack Japan, an island country. An American invasion of Japan was planned for the fall of 1945. The invasion force would consist of some six million men. It was estimated that perhaps one million would be killed or wounded in the fighting that would take at least a year. Millions more Japanese are likely to die as well. In your packet, read “The Decision to Drop the In July, President Harry Truman was told that a secret atomic bomb had Bomb. ” Dotested. you There agreewere with decision? been successfully only Truman’s two bombs ready, and those bombs were quickly shipped to the Pacific. Truman wanted to end the war as quickly as possible. He faced the decision of whether to use the atomic bombs and, if he did use them, where to drop them.

Hiroshima Nagasaki “Fat Man” “Little Boy” After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Truman said “This is the greatest thing in history” and “Nobody is more disturbed over the use of atomic bombs than I am but I was greatly disturbed over the unwarranted attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor and their murder of our prisoners of war. ”

Triumph & Tragedy in the Pacific • August 1945: USA forced Japan to surrender by dropping 2 atomic bombs • Effect of the atomic bombs: • Saved hundreds of thousands of American (& Japanese) lives • Revenge for Pearl Harbor • Showed the USSR that the USA had the ultimate weapon (began the Cold War nuclear arms race) TAKE A PIC!

Make a prediction How do you think dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was going to affect our relations worldwide?

• By August 1945, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had deteriorated badly. The Potsdam Conference between U. S. President Harry S. Truman, Russian leader Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill ended just four days before the bombing of Hiroshima. • The meeting was marked by allegations and suspicion between the Americans and Soviets. Russian armies were occupying most of Eastern Europe. • Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the U. S. atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets. In this fashion, the dropping of the atomic bomb

Its Finally Over!

EXIT Assessment Was the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan a smart decision for the US short term and long term? Just the short term? Neither?