Japanese air attacks on the Mariana Islands and anti-aircraft guns shot down about 37 Japanese aircraft during these raids. After the Marianas began to come under attack, the United States military stepped up its raids on the Japanese-held islands which could be used to launch raids on the B-29 bases. Particular attention was given to Iwo Jima, as it was correctly assumed that the Japanese aircraft which attacked the Marianas were flying from Japan and staging through the island en route to their targets. Following the first raid against Saipan in November, XXI Bomber Command B-29s were dispatched against Iwo Jima's airfields on November 5 and 8.
Internment of Japanese Americans on April 29, 1945, and only days later, on May 2, halted a death march in southern Bavaria. Many Nisei worked to prove themselves as loyal American citizens. Of the 20,000 Japanese Americans who served in the Army during World War II, "many Japanese-American soldiers had gone to war to fight racism at home" and they were "proving with their blood, their limbs, and their bodies that they were truly American". Some one hundred Nisei women volunteered for the WAC (Women's Army Corps), where, after undergoing rigorous basic training, they had assignments as typists, clerks, and drivers. A smaller number