Propaganda poster urging the reporting of suspicious activities
World War II was a devastating worldwide conflict between two major powers, the Allies (USA, UK, France, USSR, China, etc) and the Axis (Nazi Germany, Italy, Japan, etc.) , that began on September 1, 1939 and ended on September 2, 1945.
World War II began on September 1, 1939 with the Nazi German invasion of Poland, causing France and Great Britain to declare war on Germany. After the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and the Fall of France in 1940, Britain stood alone in the war and faced an air war with the Lufftwaffe. Unable to bring Britain to surrender, Hitler turned his forces towards the Soviet Union in June 1941. The United States at this time was officially neutral, thought under the Lend Lease Act, materiel, weapons, supplies, and fuel were provided to the British, French, Chinese, and Soviet forces.
The United States officially entered World War II the day after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The involvement of Japan in World War II would have a devastating effect on Japanese citizens in the United States, who were shunned and forced into Japanese internment camps.[1]
The events of the second season of The Terror, The Terror: Infamy, take place during World War II, as the Japanese residents of Terminal Island, California are forced into internment camps in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Certain individuals, such as Henry Nakayama, are arrested as possible spies for the Japanese.[2] His son, Chester, joins the war effort as a translator with the Japanese Linguist Program. ("Gaman") He serves in the campaign in Guadalcanal, where the American forces find themselves entrenched in a battle against the Japanese Admiral Takahashi. ("The Weak Are Meat"). Walt Yoshida would also enlist in the U.S. Army as part of the 442nd Infantry.
By early 1945, the internment camps created in the wake of World War II were shut down by order of the United States Supreme Court. ("Come and Get Me"). By August, the U.S. would drop the first atomic bomb in the Japanese City of Hiroshima ("Into the Afterlife) and a three days later in Nagasaki. This would prompt the Japanese surrender on August 12, 1945, following an official surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.