America Enters the War

Name:_____________________________ Date: _____________ Period: ____________

1. How did America respond after war broke in in Europe? What was the first act that they passed which expressed their position?

2. What act moved the US closer to war?

3. What event brought the US into World War II?

4. What did the US do with Japanese Americans? What court case supported this decision?

“The resettlement center is actually like jail- armed guards in towers with spotlights and deadly tommy guns, fifteen feet of barbed-wire fences, everyone confined to quarters at nine… What really hurts was being called ‘Japs’. ‘Japs’ are who we are fighting.”

-Ted Nakashima, The New Republic, June 5, 1942

Korematsu vs. The US

The Facts The Issue The Decision In 1942, President

Roosevelt ordered that select people could be banned from war zones.

The army relocated Japanese Americans on the West Coast to internment camps

Fred Korematsu was arrested for resisting the army’s order

Korematsu argued that he was denied equal protection under the law simply because he was a Japanese American

The Court held that the military order was justified for security reasons. Three judges dissented (disagreed). Justice Frank Murphy wrote that internment “falls into the ugly abyss of racism.”

5. Why do you think the Supreme Court would have supported the Korematsu vs. US decision? Why was Justice Frank Murphy against it?

6. What were some turning points of WWII?

7. What strategy did General Douglas MacArthur use in the Pacific to fight the Japanese?

8. What happened on June 6, 1944? Where did it happen? What was the result?

9. Which battle was the last major offensive conducted by the Nazi’s? What was the result?