WAR, VICTORY, AND THE BOMB
The final battles in the Pacific were among the war’s bloodiest . In June 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea effectively destroyed Japanese naval air power, forcing the resignation of
Japanese Prime Minister Tojo . Gen- eral Douglas MacArthur — who had reluctantly left the Philippines two years before to escape Japanese capture — returned to the islands in October . The accompanying Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval en- gagement ever fought, was the final decisive defeat of the Japanese Navy . By February 1945, U .S . forces had taken Manila .
Next, the United States set its sight on the strategic island of Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands, about halfway between the Marianas and Japan . The Japanese, trained to die fighting for the Emperor, made suicidal use of natural caves and rocky terrain . U .S . forces took the island by mid-March, but not before losing the lives of some 6,000 U .S . Marines . Nearly all the Japanese de- fenders perished . By now the United States was undertaking extensive air attacks on Japanese shipping and airfields and wave after wave of in- cendiary bombing attacks against Japanese cities .
At Okinawa (April 1-June 21, 1945), the Americans met even fierc- er resistance . With few of the de- fenders surrendering, the U .S . Army and Marines were forced to wage a war of annihilation . Waves of Ka- mikaze suicide planes pounded the offshore Allied fleet, inflicting more damage than at Leyte Gulf . Japan lost 90-100,000 troops and probably as many Okinawan civilians . U .S . losses were more than 11,000 killed and nearly 34,000 wounded . Most Americans saw the fighting as a pre-
view of what they would face in a planned invasion of Japan .
The heads of the U .S ., British, and Soviet governments met at Pots- dam, a suburb outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to discuss operations against Japan, the peace settlement in Europe, and a policy for the future of Germany . Perhaps presaging the coming end of the al- liance, they had no trouble on vague matters of principle or the practi- cal issues of military occupation, but reached no agreement on many tan- gible issues, including reparations .
The day before the Potsdam Conference began, U .S . nuclear sci- entists engaged in the secret Man- hattan Project exploded an atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mex- ico . The test was the culmination of three years of intensive research in laboratories across the United States . It lay behind the Potsdam Declara- tion, issued on July 26 by the United States and Britain, promising that Japan would neither be destroyed nor enslaved if it surrendered . If Japan continued the war, howev- er, it would meet “prompt and ut- ter destruction .” President Truman, calculating that an atomic bomb might be used to gain Japan’s sur- render more quickly and with fewer casualties than an invasion of the mainland, ordered that the bomb be used if the Japanese did not surren- der by August 3 .
A committee of U .S . military and political officials and scientists had considered the question of targets for the new weapon . Secretary of
War Henry L . Stimson argued suc- cessfully that Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital and a repository of many national and religious treasures, be taken out of consideration . Hiroshi- ma, a center of war industries and military operations, became the first objective .
On August 6, a U .S . plane, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima . On Au- gust 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki . The bombs destroyed large sections of both cities, with massive loss of life . On August 8, the USSR declared war on Japan and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria . On August 14, Japan agreed to the terms set at Pots- dam . On September 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered . Americans were relieved that the bomb has- tened the end of the war . The re- alization of the full implications of nuclear weapons’ awesome destruc- tiveness would come later .
Within a month, on October 24, the United Nations came into exis- tence following the meeting of rep- resentatives of 50 nations in San Francisco, California . The constitu-
tion they drafted outlined a world organization in which internation- al differences could be discussed peacefully and common cause made against hunger and disease . In con- trast to its rejection of U .S . mem- bership in the League of Nations after World War I, the U .S . Senate promptly ratified the U .N . Charter by an 89 to 2 vote . This action con- firmed the end of the spirit of isola- tionism as a dominating element in American foreign policy .
In November 1945 at Nurem- berg, Germany, the criminal trials of 22 Nazi leaders, provided for at Potsdam, took place . Before a group of distinguished jurists from Brit- ain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, the Nazis were accused not only of plotting and waging aggressive war but also of violating the laws of war and of hu- manity in the systematic genocide, known as the Holocaust, of Europe- an Jews and other peoples . The trials lasted more than 10 months . Twenty- two defendants were convicted, 12 of them sentenced to death . Similar proceedings would be held against Japanese war leaders . 9
CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II
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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
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While the 1920s were years of relative prosperity in the United States, the workers in industries such as steel, automobiles, rubber, and textiles benefited less than they would later in the years after World War II. Working conditions in many of these industries did improve. Some companies in the 1920s began to institute “welfare capitalism” by offering workers various pension, profit- sharing, stock option, and health plans to ensure their loyalty. Still, shop floor environments were often hard and authoritarian.
The 1920s saw the mass production industries redouble their efforts to prevent the growth of unions, which under the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had enjoyed some success during World War I. They did so by using spies and armed strikebreakers and by firing those suspected of union sym- pathies. Independent unions were often accused of being Communist. At the same time, many companies formed their own compliant employee organiza- tions, often called “company unions.”
Traditionally, state legislatures, reflecting the views of the American mid- dle class, supported the concept of the “open shop,” which prevented a union from being the exclusive representative of all workers. This made it easier for companies to deny unions the right to collective bargaining and block union- ization through court enforcement.
Between 1920 and 1929, union membership in the United States dropped from about five million to three-and-a-half million. The large un- skilled or semi-skilled industries remained unorganized.
The onset of the Great Depression led to widespread unemployment. By 1933 there were over 12 million Americans out of work. In the automobile in- dustry, for example, the work force was cut in half between 1929 and 1933. At the same time, wages dropped by two-thirds.
The election of Franklin Roosevelt, however, was to change the status of the American industrial worker forever. The first indication that Roosevelt was interested in the well-being of workers came with the appointment of Frances Perkins, a prominent social welfare advocate, to be his secretary of labor. (Perkins was also the first woman to hold a Cabinet-level position.) The far- reaching National Industrial Recovery Act sought to raise industrial wages, limit the hours in a work week, and eliminate child labor. Most importantly, the law recognized the right of employees “to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing.”
John L. Lewis, the feisty and articulate head of the United Mine Workers (UMW), understood more than any other labor leader what the New Deal meant for workers. Stressing Roosevelt’s support, Lewis engineered a major