California History Research Paper

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Was World War II Beneficial for California?
Luc Anderson
California History
December 13, 2013

The broad majority of American citizens supported World War II (WWII) after Pearl Harbor had been attacked, identifying a fascist threat the Western democracy was about to face. In fact, World War II was a war to be thought of as good. It began to unite America and really bring the entire nation together. They joined together to deny Nazism and fascism. But not every good War is always positive, it has bad times. If you dig deep and think what really happened in World War II, it does not get much clear that the United States should not be proud of their actions that took place. World War evolved the entire world, making the world’s most vast military and economic powers enemies. World War II was a turning point for California, some people do refer to it as a second “Gold Rush” in the way that the war pushed California into the future quickly. When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941 California from north to south was under one large panic attack, because thousands of citizens were expecting attacks on the similar basis, even by the same naval force. After a fews days of the attack, Japanese submarines were attack ships just off the coast of California, to heighten peoples fears. After the attacks, rumors began to spread all throughout California, making it more realistic that the chances of California of being attacked was a bit more believable. Anthony Jackel, a WWII historian gave an example of one of theses rumors the citizens had feared so much; “Worst of all, there were wild and unfair rumors about the ethnic Japanese: Japanese fishermen were mining harbors; supplying food, fuel and secret information to submarines off the coast; Japanese farmers were poisoning fruits and vegetables they brought to market; the Japanese were secretly organized into military units to carry out attacks behind American lines if and when an invasion came” (Jackel par. 2). If I were a citizen at the time living in California, I would not know what to believe because so much word was going around. If I heard this kind of rumor I would most definitely be afraid to eat the food because the threat of getting sick or dying. It turns out that this rumor was not actually true but ever other rumor is always believed by someone, and thats all it takes for the word to get out. The outburst of rumors caused many fears amongst the people which lead to many immediate events to happen. Martial law was declared on an island just off of Los Angeles Harbor, known as Terminal Island. A large U.S. naval base, a large ethnic Japanese community, and a very important oil building all existed as neighbors to each other. California was so in need of defense, soldiers that were only partially trained from the west coast Army post had been brought to varying locations on California’s coast to be prepared just in case of invasion. Jackel explained, “California became so rapidly ready for the next attack to happen. All of California’s beaches were strung out with miles upon miles of barbed wire” (Jackel par. 3). Cities along the coast of California were blacked out and people that owned homes or businesses, sandbagged there houses for protection. It had became such a serious subject that even, commercial airlines were to remain on the ground, all radio stations went off air and any kind of ship needed to remain in the harbor. The measures taken at the time were so serious because of the attack on Pearl Harbor had only left 16 up to date fighter planes to protect the entire state of California. California was the second largest enemy alien populated state at the time in the nation. Citizens of California that were oriented with the enemy countries, mainly Japanese and German. Many of the people were already known about by the FBI and were thought to be the threats to the state, so they were taken into custody and sent to
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