When I think of the parts of the world most affected by WWII, I think of Europe, East Asia, North Africa, and the US. (Within Europe, some nations were presumably affected less than the others – specifically, the “neutrals”, including Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland.) Beyond that, I know a lot of the rest of the world was affected to differing degrees by virtue of being allied to, or colonies of, the main combatants, but I don’t have a good idea of how much of an effect that really was. Outside of the main theaters of war, what places were most and least affected by the war? (I’m thinking of inhabited places, so no need to say “Antarctica”.)
My contribution: I was just reading an article in a back issue of the New Yorker which mentions that there was a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in 1941 that was quickly suppressed by a hastily assembled British force from Palestine.
World trade was all screwed up. For some developing colonies, huge amounts of stuff was taken out of local mines, jungles and whatnot. In other areas, the reverse, many fewer colonial officials were available to administer local government.
People from the First World came into wide contact with people of less-developed areas for the first time. Some Jewish kid from New York came back with at least some knowledge of China. That must have been strange for all parties.
Brazil, at least, eventually sent troops to help in the Med. They also suffered a fair amount of U-boat damage. They were technically neutral for a while, but basic economics meant they did a lot of business with the US and Britain in the Atlantic shipping lanes.
Also, after the British re-occupied Iraq, they sent strikes into Syria, which Germany was using for forward bases. There was more than a small risk Germany would have tried to cut through the region on the way to the Black Sea and/or North Africa.
I don’t know if you’re counting Australia in “East Asia”, but it suffered nearly 100 air raids, including the raid on Darwin depicted in the 2008 movie Australia. The Japanese even considered invading Australia, but concluded that they didn’t have the manpower to do it.
Both the French and British Empires had huge contributions from the colonies in the form of troops. At the height of the War2.5 million troops from India were fighting on the behalf of the Allies. For France, several French colonies declared for the Free French government, as opposed to the Vichy regime. Before the Liberation of France in 1944 a large amount of manpower came from these colonies.
China had large swath of lands occupied by the Japanese, as well as most of South East Asia (including French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines). Military operations in World War 2 were conducted as far away as Madagascar. As mentioned, the sea lanes as far south as Brazilian coast were menaced by German U-Boats.
As I understand it, the Canadian experience was similar to the US. We sent troops on behalf of England and made significant contributions n D-Day and the recapture of the Netherlands.
We also established some shameful internment camps, with Japanese Canadians forced into ‘jails’ merely for not looking like the average white Canadian.
Actually, there were no Germans in Syria - the Syria-Lebanon campaignwas fought purely between the British and the (Vichy) French, although the British side consisted of British, Australian, Indian, Free French, Arab and proto-Israeli troops.
Huge amounts of resources were required by the warring countries and preventing those resources from getting to the protagonists was the reason that many battles and blockades took place. Any country that provide these or who’s location might be close to a trade route was involved and getting those materials for themselves was obviously affected. I doubt if there were many places on earth - especially at the peak of WW2 - where you could live without being affected in some way by it.
But fundamentally WW2 changed the political balance of power across the world. Europe saddled itself with huge amounts of debt, the iron curtain descended over Eastern Europe, Japan was transformed, the US grew in power especially compared to Europe, and ultimately international institutions like NATO and the UN were created out of the ashes of the war. Not to mention all the technological advances that investment in war brought about. You could argue that the computer was invented by the British to decode German communications. Broadcast media started to become ubiquitous because people relied on radio sets to follow the news of the war. Out of this, our modern music culture had a platform to flourish and it’s no coincidence that the first generation who didn’t remember the war found themselves separating themselves culturally from their parents. Out of this our modern culture had developed.
President Arnulfo Arias of Panama, an open admirer of Hitler, was deposed in October 1941 in a coup sanctioned by the US (the first of three times Arias was bounced in a coup; he never served out a full term). During the war the US greatly increased its presence in Panama outside the Canal Zone, establishing bases elsewhere in the country including a chemical weapons testing facility in the Pearl Islands.
You know I deplore the thought of the internment camps as much as the next guy, but considering what was happening can we really say it was out of line. Pearl Harbor was one example of the local population with loyalties to their homeland directly helping the enemy. Prior to Dec. 7th quite a bit of intelligence was supplied to the Japanese military by ex-patriots living there.
The problem I have with the camps is that we threw everyone in there wholesale, without taking each case and looking at it, then deciding who might or might not be a threat.
As far as “the rest of the world”, I don’t think you could find many places that weren’t touched in some way by WWII. If not on a military level, certainly on a economic level.
I guess you didn’t read my post very well. I stated that I think that the wholesale roundup of foreign nationals is wrong, that it was proven that pre-December 7th information concerning the fleet at Pearl Harbor was supplied by native Japanese living in Hawaii. That is directly aiding the enemy in doing harm to our citizens and servicemen. Those that participated in such activities should be detained and prevented from doing such actions again.
I apologize that the world isn’t such a black and white place, but one can certainly be compassionate and understanding of a group of people, while at the same time realize that there might be certain individuals in that group that wish harm to your own people. I think it was wrong to round up every single Japanese American and throw them in a camp, but I can also objectively look at the situation and understand the rationale that those in charged used. Understanding why someone did something and agreeing with it are two different things.
I apologize to obbn and any mods for my previous post. I do not apologize for its content, but I acknowledge that GQ was the wrong forum for that comment. I based my post on the words “then deciding who might or might not be a threat.” However, parsing the meaning of the word “might” is not needed in this thread as it is not germane to the OP.
No need to apologize. It is certainly a emotional subject and perhaps you are right, one better suited for the GD forum. Difference in opinion is what makes life interesting. And debating the actions and reasoning of a generation past is always difficult. My apologies to the Moderator as well if my comments were inappropriate in General Questions.
It would be best to take further debate about whether internment camps might have some justification to Great Debates. However, mention that they were instituted in other places besides the US is OK for this thread.
Not with the intention of hijacking this thread any further, but the issue with the U.S. and Canadian internments was that the people who were interned were not “foreign nationals” or expatriates, but U.S. and Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. Both my wife’s parents were interned, despite the fact that they had been born in the U.S., and their parents were U.S. citizens.
If you read Gordon Prange’s At Dawn We Slept you’ll find that there are historians who believe the primary intelligence the Japanese had on the fleet and naval base was poorly supplied by members of the Japanese consulate in Honolulu and a German (or possibly German-American, I don’t have my copy of the book handy) dentist.
Postwar captured records indicate the Japanese were being poorly served by these spies, who occasionally reported more ships of certain types at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base than the U.S. Navy owned at the time.
Yes, I certainly can but not at this precise moment. I apologize that I don’t have the time at present, but dinner is almost ready and my wife isn’t as tollerant of my posting on Straight Dope over dinner as I would hope. Off the top of my head the book Day of Deceit the Truth About FDR by Robert Stinnet comes to mind. Several well research examples of this type of spying happening. Confirmed by documentation and radio intercepts of transmissions to Japan by civilians about whereabouts of the fleet and positions of ships in the harbor. Also, pictures of US Military bases and installations were sent as well. I will try, if I remember to revisit this latter. However, the moderator has already nicely asked that we limit the conversation to the OP. So this might not be the thread to discuss this in. I certainly don’t want to run afoul of the Mod. Perhaps he/she might be able to give some direction if I should or shouldn’t post cites later.
I do think this is a bit of a hijack regarding the main subject of the thread. If either of you are really interested in pursuing the subject of the justification for internment camps, I suggest starting a new thread in GD with links to this one.