The United States Aids Its Allies
Between 1935 and 1937, Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts. The laws made it illegal to sell arms or lend money to nations at war. But President Roosevelt in September 1939, persuaded Congress to allow the Allies to buy American arms.
Under the Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941, the president could lend or lease arms and other supplies to any country vital to the United States. By the summer of 1941, the U.S. Navy was escorting British ships carrying U.S. arms. In response, Hitler ordered his submarines to sink any cargo ships they met.
Roosevelt and Churchill on August 9 issued a joint declaration called the Atlantic Charter. It upheld free trade among nations and the right of people to choose their own government.
On September 4, a German U-boat suddenly fired on a U.S. destroyer in the Atlantic. Roosevelt ordered to shoot German sub-marines on sight. The United States was now involved in an undeclared naval war with Hitler.
Japan Strikes in the Pacific
Japan was overcrowded and faced shortages of raw materials. To solve these problems— and to encourage nationalism—the Japanese began a program of empire building that would lead to war. In 1931, Japanese troops took over Manchuria in northeastern China. Chinese resistance caused a strain on Japan’s economy. To increase their resources, Japanese leaders looked toward the rich European colonies of Southeast Asia.
If Japan conquered European colonies there, it could also threaten the American-controlled Philippine Islands and Guam. To stop the Japanese advance, the U.S. government sent aid to strengthen Chinese resistance. And when the Japanese overran French Indochina in July 1941, Roosevelt cut off oil shipments to Japan.
Early in the morning of December 7, 1941, within two hours, the Japanese had sunk or damaged 18 ships, including 8 battleships—nearly the whole U.S. Pacific fleet. The next day, Congress declared war on Japan. After the bombing at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese seized Guam and Wake Island in the western Pacific. They then launched an attack on the Philippines. The Japanese also hit the British, seizing Hong Kong and invading Malaya.
By February 1942, the Japanese had reached Singapore. After a fierce pounding, the colony surrendered. By March, the Japanese had conquered Indonesia. After Malaya, the Japanese took Burma.
Japanese began to win the support of Asians with the anti-colonialist idea of “Asia for the Asians.” After victory, however, the Japanese quickly made it clear that they had come as conquerors.
Before these conquests, the Japanese had tried to win the support of Asians with the anti-colonialist idea of “Asia for the Asians.” After victory, however, the Japanese quickly made it clear that they had come as conquerors.
The Allies Strike Back
In April 1942, the United States wanted revenge for Pearl Harbor. So, the United States sent 16 B-25 bombers to bomb Tokyo and other major Japanese cities. In May 1942, an American fleet with Australian support intercepted a Japanese strike force. In the Battle of the Coral Sea—both fleets fought using a new kind of naval warfare. Instead of naval ships, huge aircraft carriers did all the fighting (air battle). Japan was victorious. But the Allies had stopped Japan’s southward expansion for the first time.
The Battle of Midway (1942)
American pilots destroyed 332 Japanese planes, all four aircraft carriers, and one support ship. The Battle of Midway had also turned the tide of war in the Pacific against the Japanese.
The Allies Go on the Offensive
In February 1943, after six months of fighting on land and at sea, the Battle of Guadalcanal (Solomon islands) finally ended. The Japanese abandoned the island.
The Holocaust (mass slaughter)
During the Holocaust, Hitler’s Nazis killed 6 million Jews and 5 million other non-Aryans. Nazis proclaimed that Aryans, or Germanic peoples, were a “master race.” They claimed that Jews and other non-Aryan peoples were inferior.
The Holocaust Begins
Campaign of anti-Semitism: Many Germans targeted Jews as the cause of their failures. Hitler knowingly tapped into a hatred for Jews that had deep roots in European history. The Nazis even blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I and for its economic problems after that war. In 1933, the Nazis made persecution a government policy. They first passed laws forbidding Jews to hold public office. Then, in 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of their rights to German citizenship, jobs, and property.
Kristallnacht: “Night of Broken Glass”
17-year-old Herschel Grynszpana Jewish youth from Germany shot an employee of the German Embassy in Paris (personal revenge). On November 9, Nazi storm troopers attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany and murdered around 100 Jews.
After Kristallnacht, some Jews fled for safety to other countries. Soon, getting other countries to continue admitting Germany’s Jews became a problem.
Hitler found that he could not get rid of Jews through emigration. So he put another part of his plan into effect. Hitler ordered Jews in all countries under his control to be moved into certain cities in Poland. In those cities, they were herded into dismal, overcrowded ghettos, or segregated Jewish areas. They sealed off the ghettos with barbed wire and stonewalls. They wanted the Jews inside to starve or die from disease. Hitler soon called the “Final Solution.” It was actually a program of genocide, the systematic killing of an entire race/community which included gypsies, Poles, Russians, homosexuals, the insane, the disabled, and the incurably ill.
After Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Hitler sent SS units from town to town to hunt Jews down. The “Final Solution” officially reached its final stage in early 1942. At that time, the Nazis built extermination camps equipped with gas chambers for mass murder.