The attached article pertains to the amazing speed at which the U.S. Navy was able to add new fighting ships to the fleet between December, 1941 and December, 1942.
Newsweek‘s Raymond Moley (1886 – 1975) took a serious look at the year that had just passed, 1941, and concluded that the American people, as a whole, had had embraced the war as their own personal problem. He was impressed with the gravity with which the home front solved the problems that war brought to their doorsteps:
“The pre-Pearl Harbor issue has been liquidated, not because of an act of national will power. It had faded before the immediate tasks of war. The new year brought so many jobs to do, so many problems to grapple with that there was no time to remember 1941… At no time in the year has there been a real failure on the part of Americans to appreciate the gravity of the war job.”
“In the twelve months since Pearl Harbor the American family has begun
to experience war on the home front. Almost a full year has passed before gasoline rationing was extended to the entire country. More than a year will have passed before meat rationing begins next month. The sugar pinch has been only a gentle nip. The full extent of the fuel shortage has yet to be measured against the severity of the weather. The sign ‘one per customer’ appears on more and more shelves in the corner grocery, but except for extra cups of coffee the average menu isn’t too far from prewar. Thanksgiving of 1942 was hardly less than the usual feast day.”
When President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on December 8, 1941 – he was not the only one to do so; judging by the content of the attached article, and numerous others on this site, 100,000 other Americans did the same thing. This article is about the rapid growth of the United Sates military that took place between December of 1941 through December of 1942 – and boy, did it grow.
When President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on December 8, 1941 – he was not the only one to do so; judging by the content of the attached article, and numerous others on this site, 100,000 other Americans did the same thing. This article is about the rapid growth of the United Sates military that took place between December of 1941 through December of 1942 – and boy, did it grow.
“‘We’re so far ahead of that Heinie in tank design and production that he’s never going to catch us’ – that was the opinion expressed by Major General Levin H. Campbell (1886 – 1976), the War Department’s Ordnance Chief, in an interview in New York last week. He quoted a British officer as saying that the American M-4 General Sherman tank is the ‘answer to a tankman’s prayer.'”
Sitting before a senate committee, FDR’s Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (1867 – 1950) warned the country that the United States will have a time trying to catch-up with the Germans, who have been producing armaments since 1933. Whether our factories are making weaponry for the Allies alone, or whether we enter the war and have to make ordinance for us and the Allies – a challenge has presented itself.
With W.W. II just around the corner, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps’ “subsistence laboratory” in Chicago was burning the mid-night oil trying to create a nutritious light weight ration with little bulk for the nascent paratrooper divisions.
Eight months before the American entry to the war, FDR’s Commerce Department Office turned its attention to the thousands of Black-owned businesses throughout the country in order to help maximize their profits and bring them into the wartime economy.
Admiral Marc Mitscher (1887 – 1947), U.S.N., remarked in the attached article that Kamikaze attacks may be a menace, but only ten percent of them manage to get through.
Here is a book review from the mid-war period covering The American by historian James Truslow Adams (1878 – 1949). Adams attempts to tackle the age old question as to why Americans are different from everyone else. The reviewer quotes the observations of Crèvecoeur, among others, before delving into the meat of Adams study.
“Lightning warfare suggests initiative and spirit of the offensive; it carries with it the element of surprise, not so much in the happening as in the speed and force with which the attack is launched and delivered.”
Click here to read about the nature of Total war.
Click here to read about a Kamikaze attack like no other…
“Lightning warfare suggests initiative and spirit of the offensive; it carries with it the element of surprise, not so much in the happening as in the speed and force with which the attack is launched and delivered.”
Click here to read about the nature of Total war.
Click here to read about a Kamikaze attack like no other…
“Lightning warfare suggests initiative and spirit of the offensive; it carries with it the element of surprise, not so much in the happening as in the speed and force with which the attack is launched and delivered.”
Click here to read about the nature of Total war.
Click here to read about a Kamikaze attack like no other…
Two months after the death of President Roosevelt, and with W.W. II almost at an end, the censorship concerning FDR’s presidential aircraft was terminated. The reporters at Newsweek were not slow in reporting all that could be known about this comfy juggernaut that had spirited FDR to Malta, Yalta and Cairo. The plane was a Douglas C-54A, reconfigured to sleep five and was equipped with an inter-cabin telephone, radio, and a stateroom. The President had anticipated traveling hither and yon while planning the post-war world, but other plans got in the way.
During the Summer of 1945, with the Germans licked and the Japanese on the ropes, Ford announced that their first car for the post-war market would be produced the following year. It was called the Mercury and it came in hard top and convertible (don’t ask for seat belts).
“American troops on Okinawa thought they knew all there was to know about Jap fanaticism. But last week the Japs served it up with a new twist. The evening of May 24 started out like any other on the battle-torn island. The enemy sent its usual flight of Kamikaze suicide planes to strafe American airfields and dive into shipping offshore… At the height of the earsplitting air battle, the Japs played their trump card” – from the fuselage of a twin-engine bomber that had belly-landed on an American airfield, emerged Japanese infantry.
“Comparing the American [daylight] raids with the RAF [nighttime] incursions, it was certainly a great shock to Berliners to find their city now open to round-the-clock bombing.”
“We don’t mind the Yanks who come when the sun shines and it’s warm. It’s the Tommies sneaking in at night that we don’t like so much.”
Click here to read about the harried everyday life on a U.S. bomber base in England…
