Chapter 33

Question 1

An agreement between Britain and the United States developed at a conference in Washington, D.C., between January 29 and March 27, 1941, that should the United States enter World War II, the two nations and their allies would coordinate their military planning, making a priority of protecting the British Commonwealth. That would mean “getting Germany first” in the Atlantic and the European theater and fighting more defensively on other military fronts.

Answer 1

ABC-1 Agreement

Question 2

Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, it authorized the secretary of war to designate military zones from which certain categories of people could be excluded. Fueled by historic anti-Japanese sentiment as well as panic following the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the order led to the forced removal of some 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry (70,000 of them U.S. citizens) from the Western Military Zone (the coastal sections of Washington, Oregon, and California). Most but not all of those removed were interned in relocation camps in the interior West. The order was rescinded in December 1944, and legislation passed in 1988 offered an official government apology and modest financial compensation to surviving citizen internees.

Answer 2

Executive Order No. 9066

Question 3

Established in 1942 by executive order to direct all war production, including procuring and allocating raw materials, to maximize the nation’s war machine. The WPB had sweeping powers over the U.S. economy and was abolished in November 1945 soon after Japan’s defeat.

Answer 3

War Production Board

Question 4

A critically important wartime agency charged with regulating the consumer economy by rationing scarce supplies, such as automobiles, tires, fuel, nylon, and sugar, and by curbing inflation by setting ceilings on the price of goods. Rents were controlled as well in parts of the country overwhelmed by war workers. The OPA was extended after World War II ended to continue the fight against inflation.

Answer 4

Office of Price Administration

Question 5

Established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to act as an arbitration tribunal and mediate disputes between labor and management that might have led to war stoppages and thereby undermined the war effort. The NWLB was also charged with adjusting wages with an eye to controlling inflation.

Answer 5

National War Labor Board

Question 6

Passed amidst worries about the effects that labor strikes would have on war production, this law allowed the federal government to seize and operate plants threatened by labor disputes. It also criminalized strike action against government-run companies.

Answer 6

Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act

Question 7

The women’s branch of the U.S. Army established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. Women now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses.

Answer 7

WACs (Women’s Army Corps)

Question 8

The women’s branch of the U.S. Navy established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. The women’s branch of the U.S. Army established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. Women now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses.

Answer 8

WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)

Question 9

The women’s branch of the U.S. Coast Guard established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. The women’s branch of the U.S. Army established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. Women now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses.

Answer 9

SPARs (U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve)

Question 10

Program established by agreement with the Mexican government to recruit temporary Mexican agricultural workers to the United States to make up for wartime labor shortages in the Far West. The program persisted until 1964, by which time it had sponsored 4.5 million border crossings.

Answer 10

Bracero program

Question 11

Threatened with a massive “Negro March on Washington” to demand equal opportunities in war jobs and in the military, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration issued an executive order forbidding racial discrimination in all defense plants operating under contract with the federal government. The FEPC was intended to monitor compliance with the executive order.

Answer 11

Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)

Question 12

Nonviolent civil rights organization founded in 1942 and committed to the “Double V”—victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. After World War II, CORE would become a major force in the civil rights movement.

Answer 12

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Question 13

Native American men who served in the military by transmitting radio messages in their native languages, which were undecipherable by German and Japanese spies.

Answer 13

Code talkers

Question 14

A pivotal naval battle fought near the island of Midway on June 3–6, 1942. The victory halted Japanese advances in the Pacific.

Answer 14

Battle of Midway

Question 15

A massive military operation led by American forces in Normandy beginning on June 6, 1944. The pivotal battle led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of World War II in Europe.

Answer 15

D-Day

Question 16

So named because of the bulge in Allied lines caused by the last desperate German offensive on the western front in WWII. A force of some 400,000 German soldiers, 1000 aircraft, and several hundred tanks launched a surprise attack through the snow-clad Ardennes forest on December 16, 1944, aiming to divide and encircle the Allied forces and cut off access to the Belgian resupply port of Antwerp. The Germans were eventually stopped in late January 1945 at a cost of more than 8000 U.S. soldiers killed in action. It was the single costliest American battle of WWII.

Answer 16

Battle of Bulge

Question 17

The source of frenzied rejoicing, May 8, 1945, marked the official end to the war in Europe, following the unconditional surrender of what remained of the German government.

Answer 17

V-E (Victory in Europe) Day

Question 18

From July 17 to August 2, 1945, President Harry S. Truman met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British leaders Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee (when the Labour party defeated Churchill’s Conservative party) near Berlin to deliver an ultimatum to Japan: surrender or be destroyed.

Answer 18

Potsdam Conference

Question 19

Code name for the American commission established in 1942 to develop the atomic bomb. The first experimental bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico. Atomic bombs were then dropped on two cities in Japan in hopes of bringing the war to an end: Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Answer 19

Manhattan Project

Question 20

August 15, 1945, heralded the surrender of Japan and the final end to World War II.

Answer 20

V-J (Victory Over Japan) Day

Question 21

African-American leader who wanted to end discrimination in the work place. He led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a vigorous union representing a virtually all black workforce.

Answer 21

A, Phillip Randolph

Question 22

(1880-1964) The flamboyant, vain, and brilliant American commander in the Philippines and mastermind of the “leapfrogging” strategy for bypassing strongly defended Japanese islands during World War II. MacArthur would go on to command American troops in the Korean War until he was relieved of his duties by President Harry S. Truman for insubordination in 1951.

Answer 22

Douglas McArthur

Question 23

(1885-1966) U.S. Navy admiral who was commander in chief of the Pacific naval forces for the United States and its allies during World War II. He strategized the important victories in the Battles of Midway and the Coral Sea.

Answer 23

Chester W. Nimitz

Question 24

(1890-1969) Supreme commander of U.S. forces in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower the war hero later became the thirty-fourth president of the United States. During his two terms, from 1952 to 1960, Eisenhower presided over the economically prosperous 1950s. He was praised for his dignity and decency, though criticized for not being more assertive on civil rights.

Answer 24

Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower

Question 25

(1884-1972) Vice president under Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, Truman assumed the office of the presidency in April of that year, when Roosevelt died from a brain hemorrhage while vacationing in Warm Springs, Georgia. Truman won another term in his own right in a historically close election in 1948 against Republican Thomas Dewey. As president, he chose to use nuclear weapons against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Answer 25

Harry S. Truman

Question 26

(1879-1955) German-born scientist who immigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape the Nazis. He helped to persuade FDR to push ahead with preparations for developing the atomic bomb, but he later ruefully declared that “annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities.”

Answer 26

Albert Einstein