What We Do

On December 7, 1941 Japan executed a coordinated, multi-pronged attack on the US home front. Within a few hours, they attacked Hawai’i, Guam, Howland Island, Midway Island, Wake Island, and the Philippines. These were not just military targets. They also hit sugar mills and the Honolulu airport in Hawai’i; the Pan Am Hotels in Guam and on Wake Island; and the settlement on Howland Island.

During the war, the United States government incarcerated many people in camps and prisons across the home front. This included enemy aliens, prisoners of war, Japanese Americans and Native Alaskans, and conscientious objectors. In Hawaii, the military imposed martial law. Elsewhere in the Greater United States, enemy forces incarcerated American civilians during and after the capture of American territories.

As the US joined the war, huge amounts of resources were needed to arm, feed, clothe, and transport the military. This meant that civilians needed to do without or find other means. Some goods, like nylons, metal toys, and refrigerators, disappeared from stores entirely. Both their raw materials and factories were needed for wartime production. Some things, like rubber, couldn’t be imported because of the war. Other items were limited at the point of manufacture.