MOBILIZATION FOR TOTAL WAR
The nation rapidly geared itself for mobilization of its people and its entire industrial capacity . Over the next three-and-a-half years, war in- dustry achieved staggering produc- tion goals — 300,000 aircraft, 5,000 cargo ships, 60,000 landing craft, 86,000 tanks . Women workers, ex-
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emplified by “Rosie the Riveter,” played a bigger part in industrial production than ever before . Total strength of the U .S . armed forces at the end of the war was more than 12 million . All the nation’s activi- ties — farming, manufacturing, mining, trade, labor, investment, communications, even education and cultural undertakings — were in some fashion brought under new and enlarged controls .
As a result of Pearl Harbor and the fear of Asian espionage, Ameri- cans also committed what was later recognized as an act of intolerance: the internment of Japanese Ameri- cans . In February 1942, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans resid- ing in California were removed from their homes and interned behind barbed wire in 10 wretched tem- porary camps, later to be moved to “relocation centers” outside isolated Southwestern towns .
Nearly 63 percent of these Japa- nese Americans were American-born U .S . citizens . A few were Japanese sympathizers, but no evidence of es- pionage ever surfaced . Others volun- teered for the U .S . Army and fought with distinction and valor in two in- fantry units on the Italian front . Some served as interpreters and translators in the Pacific .
In 1983 the U .S . government ac- knowledged the injustice of intern- ment with limited payments to those Japanese-Americans of that era who were still living .