The WW2 Home Front

Military and Economic Mobilization

In response to growing threats from the Axis Powers during the late 1930s, the United States
Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts and embarked on a more aggressive military
preparedness program. In 1938, Congress announced that it sought "a Navy second to none" and
doubled the tonnage of combat vessels two years later. However, the nine battleships and
eleven Essex class aircraft carriers that were part of that build-up were not commissioned until
1943. By the summer of 1941, the military draft contributed to the 1.2 million men in the U.S.
Army.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States swiftly mobilized its armed forces and
national economy. The United States proved to be the "Arsenal of Democracy," as President
Roosevelt promised, spending about $350 billion directly on the war. Americans also participated
in greater numbers than in any previous conflict. A total of more than 16 million served in the
armed forces. Ten million of those who served were drafted. More than 400,000 Americans were
killed during the war, and another million were wounded.
The United States played a pivotal economic role in the outcome of World War Two. Military
mobilization erased the last vestiges of the Great Depression and triggered an economic boom.
The Office of War Mobilization became the agency's central national economic mobilization
office. In 1941, only about 15 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP) went to the
military; by 1944, it topped 40 percent. Indeed, in 1944, the United States produced twice as
much war material as Germany and Japan combined. Eventually, American war plants turned
out 300,000 aircraft, 90,000 tanks, and 100,000 naval vessels.
The U.S. produced a staggering amount of war material through a partnership between the federal
government and industry. Soon after the United States entered the war, representatives of industry
and labor organizations met with President Roosevelt and pledged to maintain maximum
production levels. The government formed a National War Labor Board to implement the
no-strike pledge and negotiate contract disputes. In the summer of 1942, the board approved a 15
percent wage increase for unionized steelworkers. The following year, however, John L. Lewis of
the United Mine Workers threatened a strike over salary grievances. President Roosevelt ordered
the Interior Department to seize the mines, but ultimately, the miners were granted most of their
demands.
In July 1943, Congress passed the Smith-Connally Act, or the War Labor Disputes Act, in
response to labor unrest. This law made it a criminal offense to provoke strikes in industries
working on government contracts and authorized the seizure of companies and plants needed for
the war effort. However, for the most part, management and labor worked relatively harmoniously
in mobilizing American industrial production, half of which went to the war effort.
The war generally was not an economic hardship on the home front. Price controls and rationing
were considered essential to prevent rampant inflation and maintain civilian morale. The Office of
Price Administration was created in early 1940, as American industry was harnessed to aid the
British fight against Hitler. Some consumer goods were not produced during the war. Passenger
cars, for example, were not built between 1942 and 1946, as the auto plants retooled to provide
the military with jeeps, trucks, and tanks. Goods that contributed to the war effort were rationed,
including tires, gasoline, shoes, sugar, coffee, and meat; however, the amounts permitted under
rationing were frequently more significant than Americans could afford during the Great
Depression.
American agriculture was also harnessed to support the fight against the Axis. Food production
reached a historic high in 1944, and almost one-quarter of the crops went directly to the military,
including Lend-Lease aid to the Allies. Production increased despite fewer farm laborers due to
mechanization and the widespread use of fertilizers. Before a shortage of workers hindered the
war effort, the military draft was amended to defer two million farm laborers. Government
planning also helped, as did the temporary influx of some 200,000 farm workers (braceros) from
Mexico. Many city residents contributed to the cause by planting "victory gardens" and raising
some of their produce.
Scientists made key contributions to the Allied victory. After the outbreak of war in Europe, the
National Defense Research Committee was created. Synthetic rubber, plastics, and sonar were
developed, and new weapons, including the bazooka, were invented. Penicillin, discovered by Sir
Alexander Fleming in 1929, saved countless lives. All the belligerent nations utilized Radar, with
the British leading the way for the Allies. The most significant scientific project of the war was
the development of the atomic bomb.
German scientists led the field of atomic energy in the late 1930s. Danish physicist Niels Bohr
alerted American scientists of the German research's military potential. Albert Einstein, a Jewish
refugee, and Enrico Fermi, an Italian Nobel laureate teaching at Columbia University, were
among those who persuaded President Roosevelt to sponsor atomic research. Congress eventually
appropriated more than two billion dollars for the "Manhattan Project," the codename for the
development of the atomic bomb.
In 1942, a team of scientists at the University of Chicago working under the supervision of Dr.
Fermi triggered the first successful chain reaction in a uranium isotope, U-235. Under the
direction of General Leslie R. Groves at Los Alamos, New Mexico, Robert J. Oppenheimer
assembled the scientists and engineers who built the first atomic weapon. On July 16, 1945, in the
remote sands of Alamagordo, the atomic bomb was successfully tested. The following month,
President Harry S. Truman decided to use atomic weapons against Japan.
Women and the War
Women and minorities served in greater numbers than they did during the First World War. Some
333,000 women enlisted, and about a third were in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (Wacs).
Women were employed in non-combat roles, but many of them—especially nurses and pilots who
ferried planes to the theaters of war—found themselves in dangerous situations.
In addition to those who joined the armed forces, American women contributed to the war effort
on the home front. The percentage of women in the workforce remained the same throughout the
years between the world wars, but that all changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the
military draft in full swing, women were employed in unprecedented numbers on farms and
factories. Six million women, over half of whom had never been employed outside the home
before, joined the workforce. That represented an increase of nearly 60 percent. Three-fourths of
the working women were married—many with husbands fighting overseas-and more than half
were mothers over 30. The federal government established thousands of daycare centers during
the war, but these were not enough to care for all the children of the women working in military
plants.
For the first time, women in large numbers were employed in heavy industry and other jobs that
had been traditionally viewed as "men's work." Women became steelworkers, machinists,
blacksmiths, crane operators, truck drivers, and railroad workers. As laborers in defense plants,
they helped construct military equipment, including the largest airplanes and naval vessels. "Rosie
the Riveter" was the poster girl for women employed in defense industries. Sexual discrimination
in the workplace continued, however, and most women were paid less than men for similar work,
and few women were in decision-making positions.
When the war ended, two-thirds of the women employed during the conflict left the workforce.
Many were pushed out to make room for returning servicemen. About half left voluntarily
because they wanted to resume their traditional domestic role as wives and mothers. This was,
after all, the start of the "baby boom" generation of American families who flocked to the
expanding suburbs. After an initial decline, however, the number of women in the workforce by
1947 equaled those employed during the war. Working outside the home had become respectable
for middle-class women, although they continued to face discrimination.
African Americans and the War
Throughout the war, African-American servicemen remained strictly segregated. Approximately
700,000 African Americans served, including half a million overseas, but most were in supply and
construction units. There were two black combat divisions, some separate support battalions, and
a renowned fighter group—the "Tuskegee Airmen."
War industries initially did not welcome African Americans into the labor force. In the spring of
1941, A. Philip Randolph, president of the influential Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,
threatened a massive "march on Washington" to protest racial discrimination. President Roosevelt
responded by issuing Executive Order 8802, which ended discrimination in plants receiving
defense contracts and established the Fair Employment Practices Commission.
As part of what would later be called The Great Migration, millions of African Americans
moved to northern cities and began exerting increased political power. The Congress of Racial
Equality aggressively championed ending segregation and was founded in 1941. Black
Americans embraced the "Double-V," which stood for victory against foreign foes and domestic
racism. As discussed, the rights of citizens have always been tied to obligations during wartime,
and African-Americans who fought for their country in the war would demand full rights when
the war ended, laying the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement of the post-war era.
Native Americans and the War
Native Americans left the reservations in large numbers during the Second World War. In some
cases, they were driven by necessity—the end of New Deal welfare programs—and patriotism.
Some 70,000 worked in defense industries, and many assimilated into white society. Others lost
their jobs following the war and returned to the reservations. The Indian Reorganization Act of
1934, which revitalized tribal autonomy, was weakened during the war. Indians, as well as Blacks,
faced a different world after the defeat of the Axis.
Twenty-five thousand Native Americans served in the armed forces, and many saw combat in
Europe and the Pacific. Some Indians, including Comanches in the European theater and Navajos
fighting in the Pacific, made essential contributions as "code talkers" who transmitted radio
messages in their native language.
Mexican-Americans and the War
The influx of Mexican farm laborers during the war and the migration of many
Mexican-Americans to the southwestern United States increased tensions between Hispanics and
whites. Exacerbating the situation in Los Angeles were thousands of Hispanic teenagers who
formed neighborhood gangs. These pachucos wore "zoot suits," a style of dress that originated in
Harlem during the late 1930s. The zoot-suiters rebelled against traditional middle-class society
and became targets of violence after allegedly attacking some white sailors. In June 1943,
hundreds of Hispanics were brutally beaten by white servicemen and civilians cruising their
neighborhoods in taxicabs, and after several days of street fighting, dubbed the "zoot suit riots,"
order was restored when the police moved in and arrested the Hispanic youths. A city ordinance
subsequently banned the wearing of zoot suits.
As many as 300,000 Mexican-Americans served in the armed forces, and seventeen of them
earned the Congressional Medal of Honor. Unlike Black servicemen, Hispanics and Native
Americans were integrated into regular units.
Wartime Propaganda
During WW2, the government’s official line was that the war was being fought to defend the U.S.,
not as an ideological crusade. This approach worked only too well. In 1942, public opinion polls
revealed that only about half the population claimed to have a "clear idea what the war is about."
The Office of War Information consolidated government news services in America and abroad.
The overseas branch conducted propaganda campaigns in addition to providing war news. The
government relied on wartime correspondents' self-censorship to protect military secrets and troop
movements. The Supreme Court voted five to four to uphold freedom of speech in Hartzel v.
United States, ruling that propaganda to obstruct the draft and create dissension within the armed
forces was not a crime unless specifically in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.
The federal government promoted a series of films designed to explain to American servicemen
and civilians what the war against the Axis Powers meant to the future of democracy. Known
as Why We Fight, the films focused on the common man and the virtues of small towns to
"explain to our boys in the Army . . . the principles for which we are fighting." Deftly using clips
from Leni Riefenstahl's The Triumph of the Will and other films that glorified the Nazis, these
were presented as documentary-style indictments of fascism and totalitarianism.
Japanese Internment
During WW2, the federal government made a concerted effort not to persecute German
Americans for the sins of Hitler's Nazis. Italian Americans likewise faced little discrimination
because of Mussolini. The American people viewed the fascist dictators as the enemy, not the
Italian or German people. This tolerant attitude, however, did not extend to Japanese-Americans,
who became the focal point of ethnic hatred directed against the Axis Powers.
Several hundred thousand Japanese migrated to Hawaii and the American mainland before the
1920s, when Congress prohibited further immigration. These Japanese were not allowed to
become American citizens, and by the Second World War, about a third of the Japanese living in
the United States were Issei or first-generation immigrants; two-thirds were Nisei,
native-born citizens of the United States. The Japanese on the American mainland concentrated
in California, where they generally prospered as truck farmers and store owners. Similar to other
immigrant groups, the Japanese lived in close-knit communities, but their isolation from white
society was reinforced by ethnic and racial hostility directed toward Asians. Ironically, Chinese
Americans experienced a decline in racial animosity after the Japanese invaded Manchuria.
The attack on Pearl Harbor, launched when the United States was still officially at peace, united
Americans in the war effort against the "treacherous" Japanese. The federal government, without
any evidence to support the charges, labeled the Japanese on the West Coast a "threat" to national
security. General John DeWitt, the ranking commander in California, publicly stated that the
loyalty and patriotism of the Japanese were suspect, and he did not distinguish the Issei and Nisei.
"A Jap is a Jap. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not."
In February 1942, President Roosevelt, responding to pressure from military and political officials
in California, issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the army to "intern" the Japanese.
The War Relocation Authority (WRA) rounded up more than 110,000 Japanese and
Japanese-Americans beginning in April and sent them to "relocation centers" in half a dozen
western states. Most internees were United States citizens, and a third were children. Forced to
sell their homes, farms, and businesses at short notice for whatever was offered, the Japanese lost
their property in addition to their freedom.
Conditions in the internment camps were harsh and demeaning, but the parents attempted to make
life as normal as possible for their children. They established schools, planted gardens, and
worked as agricultural laborers on nearby farms.
As the hysteria that followed Pearl Harbor subsided, and it became more apparent that the
Japanese did not present a real threat to America, conditions in the internment camps improved.
Beginning in 1943, some Japanese-Americans began to leave the camps to attend college or work
in factories—although the WRA did not allow them to move back to the West Coast. Other Nesei,
including those in Hawaii (who were not interned during the war), joined the armed forces. The
100th Infantry Battalion, comprised of Japanese-American national guardsmen from Hawaii,
and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team formed in 1943, fought with distinction on the Italian
front. Japanese-American soldiers earned more than 18,000 individual decorations—including 22
Congressional Medals of Honor awarded by President Clinton in 2000—and seven Presidential
Unit Citations, the nation's top award for combat.
In 1944, the Supreme Court issued one of its most controversial decisions when it upheld the
constitutionality of internment in the case of Korematsu v. United States. In another case that
year, the Court ruled that "loyal" citizens could not be relocated, and most internees were
gradually released. In early 1945, they were allowed to return to the West Coast, although their
property and businesses were irretrievably gone, and they continued to face ethnic harassment. In
1988, with the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, Congress finally recognized the injustice of the
relocation policy. Survivors of the camps were granted $20,000 in compensation, but many of the
internees were not alive to claim the reparations.