California During World War Ii

A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.

During World War II, the Los Angeles region underwent rapid industrial growth as Kaiser Steel opened a giant mill in Fontana, and the aircraft giants--North American Aviation, Lockheed, Douglas, and Hughes--expanded with war contracts. The war economy's demographic and ethnic dimensions included women and African Americans entering factory work and troops streaming through Union Station to San Pedro for embarkation. The Zoot Suit Riots defined the tensions between servicemen and the Mexican American community, and the internment of Japanese Americans led to the eventual disappearance of established neighborhoods. The war inspired home front efforts by local civic and academic institutions, by the entertainment industry, and by émigrés from Nazi Germany. It led to the training of civilian corps, rationing, and vigilance for enemy activities. American participation in World War II from 1941 to 1945 energized the region's growing industrial infrastructure and spurred postwar economic and housing development.

Everything changed on the morning of December 7, 1941, and life in San Francisco was no exception. Flush with excitement and tourism in the wake of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, the city was stunned at the severity of the Pearl Harbor attack, and quickly settled into organized chaos with its new role as a major deployment center for the remainder of the war. Frisco teemed with servicemen and servicewomen during and after the conflict, forever changing the face of this waterfront city. Warships roamed the bay, and fearsome gun embankments appeared on the cliffs facing the sea, preparing to repel an invasion that never happened.

World War I propelled the United States into the twentieth century and served as a powerful catalyst for the making of modern California. The war expanded the role of the government and enlarged the presence of private citizens’ associations. Never before had so many Californians taken such a dynamic part in community, state, national, and international affairs. These definitive events unfold in California at War as a complex, richly detailed historical narrative. Historian Diane M. T. North not only writes about the transformative battlefield and nursing experiences of ordinary Californians, but also documents how daily life changed for everyone on the home front—factory and farm workers, housewives and children, pacifists and politicians. Even before the United States entered the war, California’s economy flourished because its industrialized agriculture helped feed British troops. The war provided a boost to the faltering Hollywood film industry and increased the military’s presence through the addition of Army and Navy training camps and air fields, ship construction, contracts to local businesses, coastal defenses, and university-sponsored scientific research. In these stories, North traces the roots of California’s global stature. The war united Californians in common humanitarian goals as they supported war-related charities, funded the nation’s war machine, conserved food, and enforced rationing. Most citizens embraced wartime restrictions with patriotic zeal and did not foresee the retreat into suspicion, loyalty oaths, and unwarranted surveillance, all of which set the stage for the beginnings of the modern security state. California at War raises important questions about what happens when a nation goes to war. This book illuminates the legacy of World War I for all Americans.

"Our camp, they tell us, is now to be called a 'relocation center' and not a 'concentration camp.' We are internees, not prisoners. Here's the truth: I am now a non-alien, stripped of my constitutional rights. I am a prisoner in a concentration camp in my own country. I sleep on a canvas cot under which is a suitcase with my life's belongings: a change of clothes, underwear, a notebook and pencil. Why?"—Kiyo Sato In 1941 Kiyo Sato and her eight younger siblings lived with their parents on a small farm near Sacramento, California, where they grew strawberries, nuts, and other crops. Kiyo had started college the year before when she was eighteen, and her eldest brother, Seiji, would soon join the US Army. The younger children attended school and worked on the farm after class and on Saturday. On Sunday, they went to church. The Satos were an ordinary American family. Until they weren't. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The next day, US president Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan and the United States officially entered World War II. Soon after, in February and March 1942, Roosevelt signed two executive orders which paved the way for the military to round up all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and incarcerate them in isolated internment camps for the duration of the war. Kiyo and her family were among the nearly 120,000 internees. In this moving account, Sato and Goldsmith tell the story of the internment years, describing why the internment happened and how it impacted Kiyo and her family. They also discuss the ways in which Kiyo has used her experience to educate other Americans about their history, to promote inclusion, and to fight against similar injustices. Hers is a powerful, relevant, and inspiring story to tell on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Includes primary sources on defense workers, women during the war, conscientious objectors, scrap metal collection and recycling, racial issues on the homefront, and civil defense.

Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government wrongfully imprisoned thousands of Japanese American citizens and profited from their labor. Japanese American Incarceration recasts the forced removal and incarceration of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II as a history of prison labor and exploitation. Following Franklin Roosevelt's 1942 Executive Order 9066, which called for the exclusion of potentially dangerous groups from military zones along the West Coast, the federal government placed Japanese Americans in makeshift prisons throughout the country. In addition to working on day-to-day operations of the camps, Japanese Americans were coerced into harvesting crops, digging irrigation ditches, paving roads, and building barracks for little to no compensation and often at the behest of privately run businesses—all in the name of national security. How did the U.S. government use incarceration to address labor demands during World War II, and how did imprisoned Japanese Americans respond to the stripping of not only their civil rights, but their labor rights as well? Using a variety of archives and collected oral histories, Japanese American Incarceration uncovers the startling answers to these questions. Stephanie Hinnershitz's timely study connects the government's exploitation of imprisoned Japanese Americans to the history of prison labor in the United States.