The American Military

by Brad D. Lookingbill

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 II, 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 comm
ander-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 and 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.

  As the U.S. mobilized for war, the Roosevelt administration pursued an ingenious strategy for overwhelming the Axis Powers with superior assets rather than with more flesh. “We must not only provide munitions for our own fighting forces,” the commander-in-chief instructed his cabinet, “but vast quantities to be used against the enemy in every appropriate theater of war.” Wartime mobilization revitalized the industrial economy, while the federal government summoned individuals to do their part in defense of the nation. The arrangements between the central bureaucracies and the large corporations formed the foundation of the war machine that bolstered national prosperity for decades.

  The GI Way

  More than 16 million Americans served in uniform during World War II. Out of a U.S. population exceeding 130 million, more than 12 percent directly participated in the war effort. Known as the GIs, the initials probably derived from military slang for their “government issue” of standard clothing and accouterments. With a wide range of individuals assigned to outfits in a short space of time, a fascinating mixture of traits and attitudes formed the GI way.

  The average GI was 26 years old and physically impressive. Before entering the military, most service members completed one year of high school. Among the rank and file, a typical private received about $50 a month in pay. For each soldier in combat, at least three others stood behind him in a support capacity. In fact, about half of those who served in uniform never left the North American continent. According to some ratio-of-fire studies, no more than one out of every four infantrymen actually fired a weapon during combat. In hard-fought battles for contested ground, they shared a three to one munitions advantage over opponents. Whatever the case, GIs tended to pride themselves on a job well done.

  In the Army, one GI required 4.5 tons of material to deploy abroad and 1 ton a month to maintain operational readiness. Each dressed in ODs – olive drab cotto
n twill shirt with trousers. In cold weather, a field jacket was added to the “layering system.” Combat boots featured rubber soles and heels with leather cuffs. The M1 helmet with liner not only protected the head but also served as a stool, bucket, basin, bowl, or pillow. Basic gear included socks, underwear, packs, bags, mess kits, entrenching tools, ammunition carriers, shelter halves, sleeping gear, and web gear. In combat environments with surf and sand, most carried a special plastic bag for the M1 rifle to keep it functional. After American troops stepped onto the European continent, almost 63 tons of tobacco immediately followed them to the beach. Both friends and enemies of GIs envied the material wealth of the “rich Americans.”

  The GI was the best-fed soldier in the world, or so the Pentagon calculated. Mobile kitchens in the field prepared A-rations or B-rations with vast quantities of meat, fruit, and vegetables, though many griped about the powdered eggs. Composed chiefly of canned food, the C-ration provided over 3,400 calories per day to the GI. The emergency D-ration was a 4-ounce bar of fortified chocolate valued at 600 calories. Packed into boxes, the K-ration contained processed meat, biscuits, crackers, bouillon, dextrose tablets, fruit bar, chocolate bar, instant coffee, lemon juice crystals, sugar tablets, chewing gum, and a four-cigarette pack. All too often, the American military left a trail of cans, boxes, envelopes, and waste abroad.

  Wherever deployed around the world, military personnel tried to remain in contact with loved ones waiting nervously at home. Mail call and letter-writing represented vital activities to ease anxieties and to pass time. Despite censorship by military officials, the volume of correspondence with friends and family appeared staggering. By 1943, the average GI received 14 pieces of mail each week. Some avoided any reference to the war, which made an official telegram bearing the news of a sudden death all the more shocking for folks at home.