1. 23 World War II Fighting the Good War, 1939–1945
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2. Chapter Opener: Pearl Harbor (page 685)
Text Excerpt: In their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese sank or damaged 18 ships and killed 2,405 Americans. Congress declared war on Japan the day after the attack. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and Germany’s allies Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary quickly followed suit. The United States now faced the challenge of fighting resolute and capable enemies in Europe and the Pacific against whom victory was not certain.
Background: This photo shows the front magazine of the USS Shaw exploding during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The destroyer was in dry dock undergoing repairs when three bombs struck the vessel. No sailors were killed aboard the destroyer. The ship suffered major damage but was repaired within a few months and served in the Pacific for the rest of war. The first photographs that the American public saw of Pearl Harbor were distant shots that only showed billowing clouds of smoke from the harbor. The U.S. Navy next released images of the post-attack destruction a few months later. It did not release close-up shots of the attack and damage to the press until nearly a year after the attack. Life magazine published these photos in its December 14, 1942 edition with the headline “Pearl Harbor Damage Revealed”.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over intervention versus non-intervention preceding Pearl Harbor
Competing Visions over who was to blame for Pearl Harbor
Insight into how Pearl Harbor fits into the broader Japanese attack against the West
Discussion Questions:
What meaning have Americans assigned to photographs of the attack on Pearl Harbor?
How does the attack on Pearl Harbor compare to the sinking of the Maine in 1898?
Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor?
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3. FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT, 1939-1945
World War II
FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT,
The Approaching War
On the Home Front
On the Front Lines
Ending the Pacific War
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4. The Approaching War Fascism and Appeasement The Arsenal of Democracy
War with Japan
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5. The Approaching War
Non-interventionists – Those urging the nation to stay out of overseas conflicts Interventionists – Those advocating direct engagement in overseas conflicts
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6. Fascism and Appeasement
What does this map convey about the scope of World War II? What different lessons did American and other world powers draw from World War I? How did Hitler rapidly conquer Western and Eastern Europe?
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7. Fascism and Appeasement
Neutrality Acts – A series of laws from 1935 to 1939 that restricted arms sales, loans, and transport of goods with nations at war “Cash and carry” – A policy that required belligerent nations to pay cash for goods and transport them on their own ships
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8. Fascism and Appeasement
Munich Conference (1938) – Hoping to avoid war, Britain and France agreed to let Germany occupy the Sudetenland, a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia. Axis – Name for nations fighting the Allies, including Germany, Italy, and Japan
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9. German and Japanese wars of conquest set the world aflame.
Image 23.1: The World at War
German and Japanese wars of conquest set the world aflame.
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10. Image 23.2: Origins of World War II
The United States remained neutral until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
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11. Image 23.3: Hitler in Paris
Adolf Hitler’s quick subjugation of Western Europe brought him to Paris by June He posed in front of the city’s most recognizable monument, the Eiffel Tower, to underscore France’s defeat and his own power.
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12. The Arsenal of Democracy
How did the competing visions of non-interventionists and interventionists influence FDR’s rhetoric and actions?
What competing visions did these two cartoons (23.4 and 23.5) offer on the threat that Hitler posed to the United States?
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13. The Arsenal of Democracy
Allies (World War II) – Name for the powers fighting Germany, eventually including the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union Lend-Lease – A policy that circumvented “cash and carry” by loaning rather than selling arms to the Allies
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Image 23.4: Dr. Seuss Lampoons Non-interventionists in 1941 (page 690)
Caption: Dr. Seuss lampooned non-interventionists for closing their eyes to the threat that Hitler’s navy (depicted here as swastika-marked monsters) posed to American shores.
Text Excerpt: This Seuss cartoon shows a non-interventionist wearing an “America First” hat in a bathtub that is jumping with predatory sea creatures adorned with swastikas, the symbol of the Nazi Party. His eyes closed tight, the man ignores the danger, saying with a satisfied smile, “The old Family bath tub is plenty safe for me!”
Background: Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Seuss Geisel in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts, to a prosperous German-American family that spoke German at home. During World War I, when German- American loyalty came under suspicion, the young Seuss joined the Boy Scouts and sold war bonds, which his family bought in droves. He graduated from Dartmouth and moved to New York, where he became prosperous drawing advertisements for the oil company Esso and was just beginning his career as an author of children’s books when World War II began. This cartoon appeared in PM, a New York metro area political newspaper with a daily circulation of 150,000 that used photographs and visuals to present its pro-New Deal and anti-fascist political point of view. In the cartoon, note the leak in the drainpipe near the floor that is slowly emptying the tub (reducing the distance between America and the Nazi threat) as the man sits contentedly with his eyes closed.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over intervention versus non-intervention in World War II
Competing Visions of the Atlantic Ocean as a barrier or highway to Nazi threat
Competing Visions over whether FDR’s neutrality policies would prevent or lead to war with Germany
Discussion Questions:
How does Dr. Seuss represent the Nazi threat?
How would America First followers respond to Seuss?
Why did the United States wait two years before entering World War II?
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15. Image 23.5: “Water Hazards,” 1941
This Chicago Tribune editorial cartoon accuses interventionists of unduly alarming the country about the possibility of a Nazi attack.

16. War with Japan
How did the United States respond to increasing Japanese aggression? How significant was the attack on Pearl Harbor in the short and long run?
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17. War with Japan
Pearl Harbor – A U.S. naval base in Hawaii that the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941
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18. Image 23.6: Japanese Model of Pearl Harbor
This mock-up of Pearl Harbor, constructed for a Japanese wartime film of the attack, showed American battleships lined up in a row, making them easy targets for aerial bombs.
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19. On the Home Front Images of the Enemy Internment Camps
Prosperity, Scarcity, and Opportunities for Women
Racial Discord
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20. Images of the Enemy
What distinctions did Americans now make between the Japanese and Chinese?
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21. Image 23.7: “How to Tell Japs from the Chinese”
Lamenting the American tendency to lump all Asians together, Life magazine analyzed the facial features of Chinese and Japanese men to instruct readers in the difference between the two groups—one an ally, the other the enemy.
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22. Internment Camps
What do these photos (23.8) reveal about American fears of a Japanese attack? What competing responses did Japanese Americans have to internment?
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23. Internment Camps
Internment camps – Camps in the United States that held people of Japanese descent under armed guard in isolated areas
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24. Image 23.8: Plant Camouflage, Before and After
This aircraft factory in Burbank, California, camouflaged its facility with a painted tarp and cardboard houses to create the facade of a suburban housing development to deceive Japanese pilots on the lookout for military targets.
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25. Image 23.9: A Japanese American Protests Internment
Government officials censored this photograph of a Japanese-American veteran who reported to the evacuation center in his old uniform. He gave his name to a Japanese-American staff member who decided instead to affirm his loyalty by cooperating openly with authorities.
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26. CIVIL LIBERTIES AND NATIONAL SECURITY CLASH
Competing Visions
CIVIL LIBERTIES AND NATIONAL SECURITY CLASH
The majority of the Supreme Court agreed that internment of Japanese Americans was not based on hostility to their race and so was not unconstitutional.
Justice Frank Murphy argued that internment was unconstitutional because it was racially motivated.
Did a legitimate military reason exist to place Japanese Americans in internment camps?

27. Competing Visions: Civil Liberties and National Security, Japanese-American Girl (page 696)
Caption: Japanese-American girl saying the Pledge of Allegiance
Text Excerpt: In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of relocating and interning Japanese Americans as a justifiable military measure. Three justices dissented from the majority opinion, concluding that interment violated the constitutional rights of Japanese-American citizens.
Background: Dorothea Lange photographed this young girl saying the pledge of allegiance at Raphael Weill Public School in San Francisco in The student stands with her classmates, a multiethnic group of white, Hispanic, and Asian little girls. This image seemingly underscores the loyalty of Japanese Americans and their successful integration into mainstream American culture. Lange also photographed the group of boys on the other side of the playground, where one held the flag. Yet the caption for these photos did not overtly criticize the relocation of Japanese Americans. It read: “Children in families of Japanese ancestry were evacuated with their parents and will be housed for the duration in War Relocation Authority centers where facilities will be provided for them to continue their education.” Lange might have written this soothing caption, which presents the relocation process as humane, to get her images past military censors. She did not succeed. Military censors suppressed 97% of the images she took, stamping “impounded” on them and filing them away so that they remained unseen during the war years.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over balancing national security and civil rights
Competing Visions over the reasons for photographing the relocation; humane and justified versus unjust and unnecessary
Competing responses of Japanese Americans to the internment
Discussion Questions:
How does this photograph present Japanese Americans and the need for internment?
What competing responses did Japanese Americans have to internment?
How does this image compare to images that Lange took during the Great Depression?

28. Prosperity, Scarcity and Opportunities for Women
What competing visions of working women emerged during the war? How did World War II affect childhood? Why was World War II unique compared to other American wars?
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29. Image 23.10: Norman Rockwell, “Rosie,” Saturday Evening Post, 1943
The lyrics to a popular 1942 song, “There’s something true about/Red, white, and blue about/Rosie the Riveter,” inspired Rockwell to set his Rosie against the backdrop of an American flag and place her foot on Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Rockwell thus assured Americans that patriotism, rather than money or career ambitions, encouraged women to take factory jobs.

30. Image 23.11: “Mothers at Work”
As the war drew to a close, official posters and private advertisements encouraged women to revert to their traditional roles as homemakers.
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31. Image 23.12: Children and War
Children helped in the war effort by collecting metal for neighborhood scrap drives and by shopping with a ration card while their parents worked.
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32. Racial Discord
How did African Americas challenge racial discrimination during the war? How did the wartime experiences of African Americans compare to those of Latinos?
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33. Image 23.13: Horace Pippin, “Mr. Prejudice” (1943)
The fractured “V” in Pippin’s painting suggested that the African-American vision of using the war to secure democracy at home and abroad was in jeopardy.
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34. On the Front Lines Defeat, Then Victory The Final Push in Europe
America’s Response to the Holocaust 
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35. Defeat, Then Victory
What does this map (23.14) reveal about the military challenges facing the United States in the Pacific? Why did the Western Allies attack the Axis powers first in Italy, rather than France?
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36. Defeat, Then Victory
How did the tide gradually turn in favor of the Allies in Europe and the Pacific? What do media images of the Japanese suggest about American wartime culture?
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37. Image 23.14: War in the Pacific
Allied victories at Guadalcanal, the Coral Sea, and Midway halted the Japanese expansionism, preparing the way for the Allied island-hopping campaign in 1944–1945.
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38. Image 23.15: The European Theater
The Soviet army fought alone in Europe until the Western Allies invaded Italy in 1943 and launched the D-Day invasion of France in 1944.
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39. Image 23.16: General MacArthur’s Return to the Philippines
MacArthur used the press to publicize his return to the Philippines in Military photographers captured his purposeful stride ashore, and that evening MacArthur proclaimed in a radio address, “People of the Philippines: I have returned ... Rally to me.”
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40. Image 23.17: “A Wartime Souvenir”
In 1944, Life magazine chose this photo as its picture of the week. The young woman’s fiancé sent her a Japanese skull with an inscription that read: “This is a good Jap—a dead one picked up on the New Guinea beach.” Collecting enemy body parts as war trophies was common among American troops fighting Japan, but not in the European theater.
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41. The Final Push in Europe
Why did the Allies prevail on D-Day? What significant decisions were reached at the 1945 Yalta Conference?
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42. Image 23.18: D-Day Invasion, 1944
Robert Capa’s grainy photograph conveyed the chaos and danger American soldiers faced when they hit the beaches in Normandy, France.
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43. Images as History
COMBAT PHOTOGRAPHY
How did the political and military situation influence the way Americans viewed these photographs?

44. Images as History COMBAT PHOTOGRAPHY
Military censors forbade publication of photographs containing identifiable war dead or badly mutilated corpses, worried that such pictures might depress morale on the home front.
“Here Lie Three Americans,” 1943

45. Images as History COMBAT PHOTOGRAPHY
This image showed teamwork and that the struggle was not over. Some of the marines in the photo toured the country in a successful war bond campaign. Joe Rosenthal, the photographer, was later accused of staging this scene.
“Old Glory Goes Up on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima,” 1945

46. America’s Response to the Holocaust
How did images instruct Americans about the meaning of the Holocaust and their role as liberators?
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Image 23.19: German Civilians Viewing Corpses in a Concentration Camp (page 710)
Caption: Photographs from liberated concentration camps, like this one from Buchenwald, Germany, shocked the world. American military commanders forced German civilians, who professed ignorance about the atrocities, to view and bury the dead.
Text Excerpt: In the photo shown here, American soldiers assembled German civilians before a truckload of corpses to listen to a lecture on the barbarity. Forcing German civilians to view the carnage with their own eyes, and in some cases to bury the bodies, was part of a deliberate Allied campaign to make all Germans accept responsibility for their nation’s war crimes.
Background: “Let the world see,” General Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed, as he allowed official and news photographers into the liberated concentration camps to take photos of the atrocities. The U.S. military also arranged carefully choreographed camp visits to send a clear message to the public about how to understand the Holocaust. The composition of this image separated the American liberators, German perpetrators, and Jewish victims into three distinct groups. The power and disapproval of the Americans is seen in their angry postures as they lecture the civilians on the extent of the atrocity. The civilians’ backs are facing the camera, allowing them to serve as representatives of the German public’s compliance with the murders. The stacks of skeletal corpses convey the scope of the killings and the suffering inflicted on the victims before they died. Life magazine defended its decision to publish these atrocity images of the camps with this statement, “Dead men have indeed died in vain if live men refuse to look at them.”
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over the American response to the Holocaust
Conveying the uniqueness of the Holocaust in comparison to other images and episodes of war-related violence
Creating a groundswell of support for punishing the perpetrators in the Nuremberg Trials
Discussion Questions:
How did images instruct Americans about the meaning of the Holocaust?
Why was it important to create a photographic record of the Holocaust?
Could the United States have done more to stop the Holocaust?
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48. DECIPHERING THE HOLOCAUST
Envisioning Evidence
DECIPHERING THE HOLOCAUST

49. DECIPHERING THE HOLOCAUST
Envisioning Evidence
DECIPHERING THE HOLOCAUST

50. DECIPHERING THE HOLOCAUST
Envisioning Evidence
DECIPHERING THE HOLOCAUST
What insights do these data offer on the scope of the Holocaust and the American response?

51. Ending the Pacific War Edging Closer to Japan Dropping the Atomic Bomb
The Final Surrender
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52. Edging Closer to Japan
What new tactics raised the death toll in the Pacific war?
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53. Image 23.20: Attacking Japan
In 1945, American firebomb attacks destroyed 67 Japanese cities, while extensive mining of major waterways severely reduced trade. Millions of Japanese civilians were homeless and starving by the time the United States dropped two atomic bombs in August.

54. Dropping the Atomic Bomb
Manhattan Project – The code name for the secret U.S. government research program to produce the atomic bomb
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55. The Final Surrender
How did the war against Japan finally end? How might this distribution of wartime casualties have shaped the postwar world? Why did this photo (23.22) become an iconic image of World War II?
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56. Image 23.21: The Human Cost of Global War
Worldwide wartime casualties, those killed and wounded, numbered in the millions.
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Image 23.22: “Kiss in Times Square,” 1945 (page 715)
Caption: Jubilation greeted the news that Japan had surrendered. Two strangers shared a passionate kiss in Times Square, conveying the life affirming energy that filled the air.
Text Excerpt: When news of the Japanese surrender hit the United States, Americans swarmed into the streets to celebrate the good news. “Every female was grabbed and kissed by men in uniform,” recalled one woman who joined the crowed in Times Square, New York City. The celebrants included a sailor whose impromptu kiss with a passing nurse was captured by Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt. The candid shot, “Kiss in Times Square,” became known as “the smack seen round the world.”
Background: Life magazine published this photograph taken on August 14, 1945 in the August 27, 1945 issue as part of a photo-essay entitled “Victory Celebrations”. The caption read, “In the middle of New York’s Time Square, a white- clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers.” The photo was one of many images of jubilant young people cheering, embracing, and kissing. Its superior composition made it an immediate cultural icon. The photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt denied staging the photo but acknowledged that he had a certain composition in mind. “…I noticed the nurse, standing in that enormous crowd. I focused on her, and just as I'd hoped, the sailor came along, grabbed the nurse, and bent down to kiss her. Now if this girl hadn't been a nurse, if she’d been dressed [in] dark clothes, I wouldn't have had a picture. The contrast between her white dress and the sailor’s dark uniform gives the photograph its extra impact.” The image brings together three important symbols: the returning serviceman, the welcoming woman, and Times Square as the crossroads of America. In “kissing the war goodbye” the image conveys the idea of an immediate return to normalcy where life-affirming youth and sexuality replace the death and destruction of war.
Chapter Connections:
Competing Visions over dropping of the bomb
Competing Visions over the transformative nature of World War II: permanent or temporary
Competing Visions over whether World War II is “the good war”
Discussion Questions:
Why is this photograph an iconic image of World War II?
How does it compare to “Old Glory Goes Up on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima”?
What challenges still lay ahead for the United States?
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58. Choices and Consequences
HOW TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB
Following the capture of Okinawa, the U.S. military faced the formidable task of invading Japan itself.
President Truman’s goals were to:
Secure an unconditional surrender from Japan
Save American lives
Establish postwar supremacy over the Soviet Union
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59. Choices and Consequences
HOW TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB
Choices regarding the use of the atomic bomb:
Convince Japan to surrender by conducting a demonstration of the bomb’s power in an uninhabited area
Drop one atomic bomb on Japan and wait for its reaction
Drop both atomic bombs on Japan
Inform the Soviet Union before dropping the bomb
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60. Choices and Consequences
HOW TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB
Decision and consequences:
Truman chose to drop both bombs separately to maximize the shock.
On August 6, the “Little Boy” bomb destroyed three-fourths of the city of Hiroshima and killed 80,000 people instantly.
On August 9, the “Fat Man” bomb destroyed two-fifths of the city of Nagasaki and killed 35,000 people.
On August 14, Japan surrendered.
Soviet and American mutual distrust led to a nuclear arms race.
Why does so much controversy surround dropping the atomic bomb and not conventional weapons?
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61. Choices and Consequences
HOW TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB
Continuing Controversies
Should the United States have dropped the bomb?
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62. Chapter Review Questions
What conflicting visions did Americans offer in response to the expansionist drives of Germany and Japan? How did these visions influence the American path to war?
How did visual images shape Americans’ views of the war and their enemies?
How did the war affect racial, labor, and gender relations on the home front? What conflicting visions emerged?
What strategic challenges and battlefield conditions did the United States face in the Pacific and European theaters? How did the United States prevail against Japan and Germany?
Why did the United States drop the atomic bomb?
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