How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

In news media, literature, and pop culture on the American mainland, “prominent treatment of overseas territories [is] rare” (154). A popular exception, Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) “avoided mentions of colonies, territories, and empires altogether” (154). As the Anti-Imperialist League weakened, the Pan-American Freedom League arose, led by Ernest Gruening. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Gruening the head of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions within the Department of Interior, established in 1934 to consolidate authority over Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska, the Virgin Islands, and, later, the Philippines. Guam and American Samoa were “kept as fiefdoms of the navy” (156). Gruening told Roosevelt that “a democracy shouldn’t have any colonies” (156). He did not have much power, however. His rivalry with the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, led to Gruening’s removal from Washington and relocation to Alaska as governor.

During the 1930s Great Depression, America was an outlier because it was “infinitely more self-contained” (157) and less reliant on its colonies than some European countries. The Philippines was dependent on the US, with 80% of its trade going to the mainland US The islands were also “prevented from developing an outward-facing military” (160). In 1934, the Philippine Independence Act did not grant independence but did allow for a new government within the “commonwealth.” Manuel Quezon was elected. There was even a movement to reverse the gradual establishment of independence in the Philippines. Puerto Rico was in a similar situation, economically affected by the Great Depression and insurgent violence. The island was equally dependent on the mainland US, which meant that independence and economic tariffs “would be catastrophic” (161) during the period of American protectionism.

To build a national defense force, Quezon recruited General Douglas MacArthur, who lived in the Pacific for decades (163). His father, Arthur MacArthur, was the governor of the Philippines during the Philippine War. The mainland balked at MacArthur’s proposal for a Philippine army in part due to “apathy toward the colonies” (165) and mistrust of the colonized. In 1937, MacArthur resigned from the army to remain Quezon’s military adviser (167). By mid-1941, with Japan’s expansion, Roosevelt made MacArthur the commander of all US forces in Asia, absorbing the Philippine army.

American colonies such as Alaska and its Aleutian Islands—not just Hawaii—were particularly vulnerable to Japan in the early days after America’s entry into World War II. As a result, President Roosevelt initiated the construction of the 1,685-mile-long Alaska Highway, connecting the territory to the mainland and facilitating supplying the World War II ally, the Soviet Union, through Lend-Lease. Workers had to carry all their supplies, equipment, and even shelter in the freezing temperatures. Finished in November 1942, the Alaska Highway cost $19.7 million.

Hawaii also received a significant economic boost because of the war. In general, the territories were the place during World War II “where militarization truly took command” (173) and the government grew significantly. Hawaii had strict curfews, rules on carrying gas masks and identification, and “blackouts” to prevent Japanese planes from navigating (173). Hawaii residents had to be registered, vaccinated, and fingerprinted. Martial law lasted for approximately three years.  

Japan’s conquest of the Aleutian Islands (Kiska, Attu, and Agattu) in June 1942 was the subject of official censorship in the US and of propaganda in Japan. Alaska, too, “became its own sort of military garrison” with “near-total blackout on information,” unlike the mainland (178). Indigenous Alaskans endured segregated schools and “NO NATIVES ALLOWED signs in hotels and restaurants” (183). Nonetheless, many joined the Territorial Guard building trails and shelters, keeping watch, and using outdated World War I rifles.

The Aleutians were imprisoned like Japanese Americans—over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry, including many US citizens, were forcibly moved away from the Western US and placed in concentration camps through Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9906. Whereas the federal government feared that the Japanese Americans would cooperate with Japan, in the case of the Aleutians, this imprisonment was declared to be “a way to keep civilians out of a war zone” (179), although the white residents could stay. Their living conditions were terrible. It was impossible to leave by boat because they required military permission.

Approximately 30,000 people of Japanese descent were imprisoned in the Philippines too, including naturalized citizens. Their homes and businesses were raided. Japanese imprisonment in the Philippines did not last long because of Japan’s invasion of the islands. The Japanese in the Philippines faced a serious dilemma “between the brutality of the Japanese military and the misery of [their] Filipino friends” (182). Embittered by their captivity, many of Japanese background joined Japan and “took swift and brutal revenge on those who had locked them up” (181).

Hawaiian and mainlander second-generation Japanese Americans eventually joined the 442nd Infantry Regiment and fought in Europe during World War II. The 100th Battalion, formed from Hawaiian second-generation Japanese Americans, and absorbed into the 442nd, also outperformed others. In the end, the 442nd “was one of the most decorated units in US history” (185).

While both Alaska and Hawaii were militarized, “the war saw Western colonies invaded and conquered” (187). These were parts of the Philippines, such as Manila, Singapore, Batavia (Indonesia), and Rangoon (Myanmar/Burma). The Manila invasion was perplexing because Douglas MacArthur had plenty of warnings after Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack, but his planes remained grounded. As a result of Japan’s strike, the American air force in the Philippines was inoperable.

McArthur focused on the Bataan peninsula and on January 1, 1942, he left Manila “entirely undefended” (189) for the Japanese to enter. Meanwhile, the American and Filipino troops in Bataan were running out of rations by March, leading to hunger and disease. MacArthur believed that Roosevelt would send significant relief to the Philippines, but “only a trickle arrived” (190). The Filipinos realized that the US was prioritizing the European front and aiding Britain over the Pacific colonies. This enraged Philippines’ President Manuel Quezon, while Emilio Aguinaldo urged his people to cooperate with Japan. MacArthur too believed that his second home “was being treated as a sacrifice zone” (192). In March, the colony was abandoned, while in April the Japanese orchestrated the Bataan Death March, forcing American and Filipino troops to walk significant distances. MacArthur’s aide diplomat Carlos Romulo “implored mainlanders to remember that Filipinos were ‘Americans,’ too” (195) and that “Bataan was the story of Filipinos sacrificing themselves for the United States” (194).

Japan’s wartime slogan “Asia for the Asiatics” was “a powerful, revolutionary idea” for the colonized people of the time (196). Although the Japanese occupation was often violent and repressive, in October 1943 Japan offered the Philippines independence. Even though the Japanese army occupied the Philippines—now an “ally”—many people welcomed seeing their flag “flutter alone, at long last” (199).

Meanwhile, MacArthur used island hopping rather than having to “maintain a continuous, football-scrimmage front” (200). With this successful approach, MacArthur “bounced from victory to victory up New Guinea and the islands of the South Pacific” (200) while Admiral Chester Nimitz used the same technique from Hawaii. In July 1944, MacArthur informed Roosevelt that bypassing the Philippines “would be militarily wrong, politically wrong, and ethically wrong” (201). He reminded the President of Bataan and said that “Asians were watching how the United States treated its largest colony” (201). By October 1944, MacArthur’s troops began their attack on the Japanese-occupied Philippines. MacArthur returned as he promised.

Urban warfare in Manila was difficult. As a result, the military governor of Japan, Tomoyuki Yamashita, ordered his troops out, while Rear Admiral Iwabuchi Sanji moved in. The Admiral made it difficult for MacArthur to retake the city in many ways, even placing mines throughout. What ensued was a bloodbath, with Iwabuchi’s men killing fighters and civilians alike. The US shelling leveled city blocks. The total Filipino death toll from the war exceeded a million, while the Japanese lost half a million. Overall, the war in the Philippines “rarely appears in history textbooks” even though “[i]t was by far the most destructive event ever to take place on U.S. soil” (211).