The American Military - A Narrative History

by Brad D. Lookingbill

  After 1941, a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor served as an enduring reminder of Japanese aggression as well as American vulnerability. Despite delivering a masterful blow, Yamamoto worried that the air and sea strike on December 7 had merely awakened “a sleeping giant.” In the U.S., a sense of humiliation and disbelief drove an unremitting search for scapegoats thereafter. Conspiracy theorists repeated unfounded allegations about the breakdown of military intelligence, especially in regard to the failure of the Roosevelt administration to protect the battle fleet. “Remember Pearl Harbor” became a national call to arms, while Americans marked Pearl Harbor Day on their calendars. Almost everyone recalled the moment that he or she heard the shocking news. As an object of commemoration, the sunken Arizona remained submerged and undisturbed near Oahu. In the years that followed, U.S. warships “saluted” the underwater graveyard when entering and leaving the unforgettable site of infamy.

  Essential Questions

  1 How did demobilization and disarmament impact the American military?

  2 Which innovations were associated with the Air Corps and the Marine Corps?

  3 Why was the U.S. surprised by the Japanese attack in 1941?

  Suggested Readings

  Biddle, Tami Davis. Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

  Biddle, Wayne. Barons of the Sky: From Early Flight to Strategic Warfare. 1991; repr. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

  Felker, Craig C. Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007.

  Heinrichs, Waldo H. Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  Hone, Thomas C., and Trent Hone. Battle Line: United States Navy, 1919–1939. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

  Johnson, David E. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917–1945. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.

  Miller, Edward S. War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991.

  Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett, eds. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

  Odom, William O. After the Trenches: The Transformation of U.S. Army Doctrine, 1918–1939. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.

  Pencak, William. For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919–1941. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989.

  Piehler, G. Kurt. Remembering War the American Way. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.

  Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: The Education of a General, 1880–1939. New York: Viking Press, 1963.

  Ross, Steven T., ed. U.S. War Plans: 1938–1945. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002.

  Venzon, Anne Cipriano. From Whaleboats to Amphibious Warfare: Lt. Gen. “Howling Mad” Smith and the U.S. Marine Corps. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.

  Vogel, Steve. The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2008.

  Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. New York: Macmillan, 1973.

  Wooldridge, E. T., ed. The Golden Age Remembered: U.S. Naval Aviation, 1919–1941. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.

  12

  Fighting World War II (1941–1945)

  Introduction

  “Somebody gimme a cigarette!” shouted Private Eugene B. Sledge, an assistant mortar gunner in the 1st Marine Division at Peleliu. After crossing the beach, a fellow Marine in K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, responded to his request. Corporal Merriell A. Shelton, who was nicknamed Snafu, teased him: “I toldja you'd start smokin', didn't I, Sledgehammer?” With the smell of burning flesh and exploding ordnance in their nostrils, a few Marines paused for a smoke during Operation Stalemate II on September 15, 1944.

  As the Marines dashed inland, Company K encountered a Japanese corpse in the tangled thickets. Sledgehammer watched his comrades conduct a “field stripping,” that is, they plundered the enemy dead for souvenirs. From time to time, some even extracted gold-crowned teeth with their Ka-Bar knives.

  After passing through the jungle, Company K formed a deep salient on the right flank of the entire division. Scattered along the edge of the thick scrub, they were isolated from other companies, nearly out of water, and low on ammunition. The Japanese counterattacked along the eastern shore, forcing them to assume a new position within the division line at the airfield. Beyond them loomed Bloody Nose Ridge, where the enemy's artillery covered nearly every yard from the beach to the airfield.

  While Sledgehammer prepared for nightfall, artillery shells shrieked back and forth overhead. As small-arms and machine-gun fire rattled everywhere, he dug a gun pit to set up his 60mm mortar. Huge flares illuminated the darkness, revealing shadowy targets moving along the hard coral. The shelling produced thunderous explosions, while the ground quaked with fury. Fragments ripped through the air and struck limp and exhausted bodies. None but the dead were unshaken by the blasts. Those still alive anticipated a banzai charge, in which Japanese soldiers desperately hurled themselves into Marine foxholes. Throughout the night, their Ka-Bar knives remained within reach. While a few catnapped on the coral gravel, the sounds of the dueling cannons kept most awake.

  Figure 12.1 Marine Private First Class Douglas Lightheart at Peleliu, September 14, 1944. Record Group 127: Records of the U.S. Marine Corps, 1775–9999, National Archives

  Sledgehammer kept notes about that day inside a Gideon New Testament, which he carried in his breast pocket until World War II ended. Because only 26 of the original 235 men of Company K remained with the outfit, he called them “fugitives from the law of averages.” Numbering 16,459 before landing at Peleliu, his division counted 1,111 killed and wounded after its first day in action. The figure grew to 6,526, as fighting to secure the island continued for 10 weeks. Combined with the subsequent carnage at Okinawa, division losses reached 14,191. While preparing to storm the beaches of Japan's home islands, the Marines heard the news about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Sledgehammer noted an “indescribable sense of relief” at the final staging area, where he sat trying to imagine a world without war.

  Almost everyone engaged in World War II became either a potential killer or a potential victim. With approximately 1 million American casualties between 1941 and 1945, exactly 292,131 combat deaths were recorded by U.S. forces in the theaters of operations. Another 115,185 died from other causes such as disease or accidents. About half of the American fatalities occurred in the European theater, while the rest died in the Pacific. No nation suffered more casualties than the Soviet Union, though. Accordingly, the Russians counted close to 26 million deaths. Worldwide, as many as 60 million people perished during the hostilities. According to some estimates, half of them were civilians. Over the course of 2,174 days, World War II claimed a life every 3 seconds.

  World War II shook the American people loose from the Great Depression and flung them to the forefront of an armed conflict. To defeat the Axis Powers, the U.S. joined forces in a Grand Alliance with Great Britain as well as with the Soviet Union and Nationalist China. The Allies resorted to “total war,” which involved the mobilization of national resources, conscription of military personnel, domination of operational theaters, disregard for enemy noncombatants, and pursuit of unconditional surrender. They rolled back the tide of totalitarian aggression in Europe and Asia. Nevertheless, Americans in uniform seldom expressed their wartime experiences in the sweeping terms of human freedom. Instead, most of them fought for a band of brothers on the land, in the air, and at sea. In the end, they evinced a penchant for the quick, direct, and decisive actions that defined the American way of war.

  War Machine

  While amassing the arms, resources, and personnel to fight World War I
I, Americans enjoyed the benefits of both “guns and butter.” In the U.S., civilians did not experience firsthand the destructive effects of wartime production. Though hardships abounded, workers in munitions factories were neither bombed nor burned. The industrial heartland rested safely distant from the theaters of operations in Europe and Asia. Separated by oceans from the rest of suffering humanity, Americans remained insulated from the horrors of the war machine.

  Once Americans joined the war effort, the financial cost to the U.S. reached $304 billion. Citizens ultimately paid a portion of the swollen budget through a withholding system, whereby employers deducted taxes directly from paychecks on behalf of the federal government. Tax rates for a few skyrocketed to 90 percent. Nevertheless, direct taxation funded only 45 percent of the military expenditures. The rest required financing through bonds, which amounted to nearly $200 billion. Individual bond-buyers purchased one-quarter of the amount, while banks and various financial institutions acquired the remainder. Although the national debt increased substantially, mobilization occurred without diminishing the American standard of living.

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a hodgepodge of federal agencies to handle the logistical complexities of fighting the Axis Powers. Key agencies included the War Production Board, National War Labor Board, War Manpower Commission, Office of War Mobilization, and Office of Price Administration. They attempted to regulate the allocation of labor, to retool plants and facilities, to establish manufacturing quotas, and to fix wages, prices, and rents. Some mandated the rationing of items such as nylons, rubber, metals, gasoline, meat, butter, eggs, coffee, and tobacco. An imposing structure of bureaucracies and committees emerged in Washington D.C. to supervise the mobilization of civil society.

  With few exceptions, central planners in Washington D.C. preferred to deal with familiar firms for the mobilization of industry. Amid a great deal of political bargaining, the profit motive spurred competition and expansion in a manner commensurate with free enterprise. However, the largest companies such as Ford, General Motors, U.S. Steel, General Electric, and DuPont obtained the lion's share of the defense contracts. In fact, more than two-thirds went to just 100 companies. Given the concentration of economic power in the U.S., the war made the nation's biggest, richest corporations considerably bigger and richer.

  The actual contracting for the purchase of munitions and other war materials remained largely in the hands of the military establishment. The War Department and the Navy Department retained a degree of autonomy in controlling requirements for the planning, production, and distribution of military assets. The traditional bureaus such as the Army Service Forces, Army Air Forces, U.S. Maritime Commission, and Office of Procurement and Material refused to relinquish their negotiating authority to the civilians. Although the procurement system often failed to align strategic plans with nonmilitary concerns, most of the goals for mobilization were achieved without interruption.

  Mobilization required the direct involvement of the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall. Shortly before staff offices relocated to the Pentagon, the general urged Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to launch a major reorganization of the War Department. With the exception of the War Plans and Intelligence Divisions, the General Staff was reduced and limited in function to offering broad planning and policy guidance. The War Plans Division became known as the Operations Division, which served as the command post to coordinate large-scale campaigning. Marshall oversaw the training and the deployment of U.S. air and ground forces while exercising considerable influence over both strategic and operational planning.

  While advising the Roosevelt administration, Marshall worked with senior officers across the services to form the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Given the significance of air power in shaping battlefields, he insisted on the participation of General H. H. “Hap” Arnold, the deputy Chief of Staff and the commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces. In addition, membership included Admiral Ernest J. King, the Chief of Naval Operations. Eventually, the commander-in-chief added his trusted friend, Admiral William D. Leahy, as the ad hoc chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  In the melding of power and interests, the Joint Chiefs took their cue from the Combined Chiefs of Staff, or CCS, of Great Britain and the U.S. Chaired by Marshall, the combined staff planners and secretariats offered administrative support for logistical and organizational imperatives. They agreed to strategic responsibilities that spanned the globe. Formally meeting during wartime conferences, they integrated the management of military operations for each geographic theater. Consequently, the high command determined the balance and the nationality of the armed forces deployed for combat.

  The essential machinery for mobilizing the armed forces in the U.S. remained the Selective Service system, which inducted more than 10 million males out of a registrant pool of 36 million. The director, General Lewis B. Hershey, insisted on the appearance of local control and democratic participation through draft boards. According to classification, draft boards often excused from service individuals with medical defects deemed irrelevant by other nations that resorted to conscription. The list of “essential occupations” expanded from month to month, permitting the exemption of over 4 million men in industrial trades. Moreover, virtually all agricultural workers received exemptions from the draft. Compared with figures from World War I, college deferments doubled. Once Congress ended formal volunteering for the armed forces in 1942, draftees were expected to serve for the duration of the war. A steady flow of replacements kept the combat units up to strength. Despite its biases and blunders, the Selective Service system generally mobilized manpower on a rational and effective basis.

  Even though a large, able-bodied population dwelled in the U.S., civil society strained to meet the titanic challenges of mobilization. To conduct military operations around the world, the Army required large numbers of soldiers for support functions as well as for combat missions. To carry the fight across the oceans, the Navy needed sailors and equipment for its powerful fleets and far-flung bases. Furnishing men for the Army and Navy conflicted with the plans for outfitting U.S. and Allied forces for the global struggle. Of course, both defense contractors and theater commanders called upon the nation for more human resources. With a profound sense of urgency, American leaders strove not only to select men for the uniformed services but also to employ manpower for the military buildup.

  From the beginning of the war, the Roosevelt administration feared that mobilizing the armed forces to fight abroad threatened to undermine economic growth at home. Time and again, manpower calculations for the War Department changed in relation to the needs of the labor market. After several revisions downward, central planners settled upon a smaller number of divisions as the uppermost limit for the size of the Army. By 1943, they had scaled back their estimates of future troop levels and agreed to what experts called the “90 Division Gamble.” They expressed confidence in the ability of the Soviet armies to check the German advance as well as in the technology of warfare to maximize the advantages of mechanization and mobility. Accordingly, the U.S. recognized that the productive capacity of an industrial economy represented a tremendous advantage in wartime.

  While the American military frequently competed with industry for able-bodied men, the demands of wartime created millions of new jobs for civilians. The large pool of unemployed cushioned the shock of mobilization initially, but rising wages encouraged many to stay on the job. Overall, the nation's unemployment rate fell from 14 percent in 1940 to only 2 percent in 1943. The demand for labor encouraged internal migrations, as whites and blacks from rural areas of the South relocated to manufacturing centers in the Midwest and the West Coast. Under the bracero program, thousands of contract laborers from Mexico migrated legally across the border. Americans appreciated the work of the iconographic Rosie the Riveter, for women constituted over one-third of the labor force during the war. Though most women worked in clerical and service fields, a number found jobs in aircraft a
nd shipbuilding factories. The achievement of full employment in the U.S. brought the Great Depression to an end.

  The U.S. represented the only Allied nation able to field and to equip armed forces operating in both Europe and Asia at the same time. American firms retooled their facilities to produce millions of trucks, jeeps, and other types of motorized vehicles. By the war's end, approximately 40 percent of the world's weaponry came from the U.S. For instance, the M-1 rifle was one of the best shoulder arms of the period. Moreover, industrial “wizardry” such as radar, sonar, bombsights, and jet engines enhanced the technological sophistication of military operations. The world's first computers were designed to assist Allied code breakers. Fire-control mechanisms enhanced the precision of gunnery, which allowed for proper lead on a moving target. The proximity fuse, which used a tiny radio to detonate shells with variable timing, rolled off the assembly lines after 1943. Making the U.S. into the “arsenal of democracy” reinforced the popular notion that wars were won by industrial might – not by mass killing. In other words, Americans waged “a gross national product war” against their foes.

  The Liberty Ship exemplified the American talent for manufacturing. It was a 440-foot long cargo vessel that could steam at 10 knots with its hold packed full of military items. U.S. workers built 2,751 of them during wartime. Instead of riveting while shipbuilding, welders crowded together into new plants to rapidly complete the hulls. In 1942, Henry Kaiser's shipyard in Richmond, California, assembled one spacious ship in only 4 days, 15 hours, and 26 minutes. Admirers dubbed Kaiser “Sir Launchalot” for his industrial leadership.

  American factories delivered the B-24, which represented the aerial battlewagon of the bomber fleet. With a combat range of 3,000 miles and an operational ceiling above 35,000 feet, its specifications exceeded what the B-17 previously offered to pilots. The bomb bay included two compartments that each accommodated as much as 8,000 pounds of ordnance. By 1944, the work crews at Henry Ford's Willow Run factory near Detroit, Michigan, were rolling a new B-24 out the exit every 63 minutes. Ford produced half of the 18,000 “Flying Boxcars” made in the U.S.