WORLD WAR II DIARY Remembering America United ... 75 Years Later
Community Columnist
I have a book about World War II in my home library entitled “We Pulled Together ... and Won!” It recounts the American experience during the war years in a chronological fashion, using the photos and words of many who lived through that momentous period, an era in which our nation united to achieve victory in the defense of freedom.
To me, that book is a fascinating time capsule, a heartwarming glimpse backwards some 75 years into our past. For some reason, a week or so back, I took a look at a handful of the reviews for the book on Amazon. One of the individual reviewers really touched a raw nerve with me. This is what he, or she, sarcastically wrote: “If mostly forgettable pics and boring stories of the past are your thing, look no further. Everyone else beware.”
Disdain for history
I’m afraid that our reviewer’s obvious disdain for history, and its significance for our lives today, may be more widespread in this country than most of us care to admit. Remembering America’s participation in World War II constitutes nothing more than reading “boring stories of the past,” something that the average American should “beware” of.
If our reviewer’s understanding of the importance of history is true, then we have nothing to learn from the lessons of the past. America’s story during the Second World War is insignificant to us today. It is best left to lie in the dust heap of bygone days. We moderns, with all our technology, have no need for the wisdom of the ages.
It is the strong conviction of this author that a solid understanding of the past helps us, can even inspire us, to face the challenges of the present and the future. In fact, I believe that a basic grasp of how Americans came together during World War II can help stir us to a greater experience of national unity in our current crisis.
Similar crises
Both the Second World War and the coronavirus pandemic have impacted America initially in very similar ways. Each one has thrust the nation into a crisis of dire proportions in a relatively short period of time. And, each event occurred in the midst of a season of deep national division.
Our current political and ideological disharmony is well documented. Just watch the news at any time of day. What many folks don’t realize, however, is that America was in a similar situation when the Japanese launched their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Four days later, Germany and Italy both declared war on the U.S., and a previously divided America was thrust instantly into the global conflict.
In the months leading up to America’s entry into the war, discord was spreading and deepening across the land. With strong signs of economic recovery from the Great Depression, the continuation of President Roosevelt’s New Deal policies was thought by many to be pushing the nation towards socialism.
Additionally, powerful forces from coast to coast were campaigning to keep America out of the wars already underway in Europe and Asia, at all costs. Others, including the President himself, felt that we had to help in the Allied fight against tyranny, that ultimately our own freedom would be at stake.
In the midst of growing national division, Pearl Harbor occurred. Everything changed, virtually overnight. Faced with a crisis, the magnitude of which the United States had never experienced before, Americans began to pull together. While the German and Japanese war machines were arguably at their peak, the U.S. military was shockingly weak and unprepared, surpassed in overall strength by the armies of at least 18 other countries in December 1941. Our ability to wage war against and to ultimately defeat the fanatical Axis powers was very much in question.
America united
As the last bombs fell on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Americans began to come together. The once powerful America First movement, which advocated staying out of the war completely, seemed to simply disappear on that Sunday afternoon. On the next day, President Roosevelt’s request for a declaration of war against Japan received near unanimous approval in both houses of Congress. Only Jeanette Rankin from Montana, America’s first female to serve in the House of Representatives, voted against it.
Squabbling among politicians over the continuance of New Deal legislation and accusations about encroaching socialism gave way to joint efforts to fight the war and care for the American people. Increased taxes to fund the war effort, rationing of most everything from gasoline to butter, and centralized wartime control of prices and wages were met with little grumbling from a now united nation.
Indications of just how much Americans were coming together were everywhere. In the early days of 1942, as news was received of defeat and death among U.S. Army and Naval forces stationed in the Philippines, the American people remained steadfast and hung together.
By war’s end some 16 million Americans had stepped forward and served in uniform. Back home, another 17 million men and women had worked in war production plants and become a part of the U.S. industrial miracle that was at the heart of the Allied victory.
Victory gardens sprang up by the millions all across the heartland. The basic mindset behind the gardens was to grow and preserve food at home so that our troops would have enough as they fought. Young and old participated in thousands of scrap drives in order to preserve and recycle everything from metal, to rubber, to fat drippings from cooking.
New automobiles, new tires for existing vehicles, and home appliances were simply not produced at all during the war years. Citizens willingly made do without them, as company after company retrofitted to produce what was necessary for the war effort. My father, at the time a 13 year old, worked at a shipyard in Savannah where the legendary Liberty ships were being built.
85 million Americans bought war bonds to fund the war effort. $18.75 would earn one $25 in ten years time. After a while the bonds were even given as gifts at graduations, birthday parties, and weddings.
The spirit of unity that pervaded American culture did not extend to every single citizen. There were some who grumbled about deprivations and others who attempted
More than 85 million Americans bought war bonds to help fund the war effort.
black market schemes in order to profit themselves during years of rationing. These individuals, however, were the exception, not the rule.
As most Americans pulled together, there were, sadly, over 100,000 Japanese-Americans kept locked away in internment camps along the West coast. They remained there till war’s end, for fear of collusion with the enemy. Although black Americans as a whole made progress during the war years toward equality, they were still, for the most part, forced to serve in segregated military units.
Learning from WWII
Despite these unfortunate blemishes, the World War II years represent an amazing, exemplary era of national unity in the almost 250 year history of our nation. Americans came together in shared sacrifice in their commitment to a common goal. It can be argued that this unity was an absolutely indispensable element in achieving final Allied victory over totalitarianism.
We have so much to learn from the American experience in World War II. Maybe, just maybe, the unity that we achieved then, in the face of a deadly worldwide crisis, can instruct and inspire us today. There are already encouraging signs all around us, like companies retooling to make ventilators and cottage industries producing masks. Let us make it our prayer to God that the coronavirus pandemic will unite us as a nation, and help us to come out stronger and better on the other side.