The American Military

by Brad D. Lookingbill

  Koistinen, Paul A. C. Arsenal of World War II: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1940–1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.

  Korda, Michael. Ike: An American Hero. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

  Linderman, Gerald F. The World Within War: America's Combat Experience in World War II. New York: Free Press, 1997.

  McManus, John C. The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1998.

  Merryman, Molly. Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

  Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

  O'Neill, William L. A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II. New York: Free Press, 1993.

  Overy, Richard. Why the Allies Won. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.

  Perret, Geoffrey. Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II. New York: Random House, 1993.

  Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.

  Scrijvers, Peter. The G.I. War against Japan: American Soldiers in the Pacific and Asia during World War II. New York: New York University Press, 2005.

  Sherry, Michael S. The Rise of American Air Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

  Sledge, Eugene B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1981.

  Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Free Press, 1984.

  Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

  13

  A Cold War Begins (1945–1964)

  Introduction

  In early 1948, college and university students made plans for summer break. Jeanne Holm, a 26-year-old student at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, planned to serve her country. A volunteer in the Women's Army Corps, or WAC, during World War II, she yearned to wear the uniform once again. While Congress debated legislation on the “permanent status” of women in the military, she checked a box on a recruiting postcard to indicate her interest in “Air Force – Regular” and dropped it in the mail.

  That summer, Holm borrowed $600 from her grandmother and steered her 1940 Chevy toward Fort Lee, Virginia. She sought the assistance of her former WAC commander, Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth C. Smith, to obtain commissioned service. On the cross-country trip, she picked up another former WAC, Evelyn Nicholson. Short of money but longing for adventure, they slept in her car each night. After arriving at Fort Lee, she returned to active duty while awaiting her commission. “You are not going to receive a commission in the Army,” the commander finally informed her. To her great surprise, someone took note of her previous postcard.

  Commissioned in the newly organized Women's Air Force, or WAF, Captain Holm reported to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Within days, she boarded an airplane heading for Erding Air Depot near Munich, Germany, where she became a “wing war plans officer.” Discovering that no one else knew any more about war plans than she did, she carefully studied top-secret documents at the American forward base in Europe.

  Holm and her fellow officers anticipated the outbreak of World War III at any moment. While the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin, she assumed that the Red Army would “just walk in one day and take us all prisoners.” Her male counterparts suggested evacuating all of the WAF, but she disagreed. “No, the WAF is military,” she declared, insisting that “they need to stay here and do the jobs assigned to them.”

  Figure 13.1 Recruiting poster for women in the Air Force, 1951. The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project, Martha Hodges Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

  Holm, who later became the first female two-star general in American military history, started her Air Force career at the beginning of the Cold War. Once the dreaded Axis Powers collapsed, the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the U.S. unwound. An ideological contest sparked a series of international crises, which began in occupied Germany. At the same time, anti-colonial uprisings in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America exacerbated the mounting tensions. A series of miscalculations resulted in armed conflict between opposing forces on the Korean peninsula. With the dawning of an atomic age, the clash of the superpowers created a bi-polar world rife with danger.

  As the world seemed to split between communist and anti-communist countries, the American military attempted to guard the far-flung lines between them. Committed to containment, U.S. presidents abandoned the strategic concepts of unilateralism and isolationism. The lessons of Munich – that liberal democracies failed to stand against Nazi aggression before World War II – shaped the assumptions of policymakers in Washington D.C. The totalitarian regime of Joseph Stalin, who seemed as brutal as the deceased Adolf Hitler, exploited the power vacuums that emerged around the globe. The U.S. assumed a right and a responsibility for preventing the appeasement of aggressors, even if it required another war.

  In the shadow of war, the U.S. focused energies and resources on military power. The Pentagon attempted to provide a nuclear deterrent, which triggered an arms race that lasted for decades. While amassing huge stockpiles of weaponry for defense, the nation competed with the “Reds” in everything from science to sports. Most of all, men and women in uniform glimpsed the ominous signs of an enemy near the Brandenburg Gate. Denouncing Soviet actions only a year after the Allied victory, Winston Churchill warned Americans in Fulton, Missouri, that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent” of Europe.

  Department of Defense

  After World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. began to slash the annual budgets of the War and Navy Departments. Within two years, the number of service members fell to fewer than 1.5 million. While thousands performed constabulary duties in Germany and in Japan, many more awaited their discharges at military bases in the Philippines, China, France, Great Britain, and the continental U.S. Rapid demobilization drained manpower from national defense.

  Alarmed by the impact of demobilization, prominent officers endorsed the concept of universal military training. Swayed by the writings of retired General John McAuley Palmer, President Harry Truman acknowledged that the nation needed a reservoir of well-trained citizen soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The commander-in-chief asked Congress for legislation that required male citizens to undergo a year of military training upon reaching the age of 18 or after completing high school. While legislators debated the form and the function of national service, various proposals for compulsory “self-improvement” floundered. Despite the general popularity of the concept, objections ranged from the projected costs to the social implications of a “Nazi program.” Regardless of the justifications that made it more palatable, the federal government failed to find a legislative remedy that, as Truman put it, fostered “the moral and spiritual welfare of our young people.”

  Though Congress eventually extended the Selective Service system, the American military depended almost entirely upon the reserve component for reinforcements. Each branch trained reservists for activation. However, they numbered less than a million. The National Guard contained the bulk of the personnel, but several divisions remained undermanned and underfunded. Though disregarded by the professional cadre in the Army, the Organized Reserve Corps contained many experienced officers from World War II. ROTC programs readied cadets at land-grant colleges and universities, where two years of training and membership in the reserves remained common. Whether assigned to combat or support units, service members in the reserve component often drew equipment and supplies from outdated stocks.

  The Truman administration weighed measures to improve the federal oversight of all service members. While most military leaders wanted to unify the command and control of the arm
ed forces, Navy Secretary James V. Forrestal advocated a looser, more decentralized system. Dubbed the “Battle of the Potomac” in the American press, months of bureau­cratic squabbling and congressional hearings produced the National Security Act on July 26, 1947.

  The controversial law created the National Military Establishment, which designated the Army, Navy, and Air Force as three executive departments led by civilian secretaries. Accordingly, the Air Force became an independent, coequal branch of service with jurisdiction over strategic air power, air transport, and air support. While the Army maintained primary responsibility for conducting ground campaigns and for providing occupation and security garrisons, the Navy directed surface and submarine operations, sea-based aviation, and the Marine Corps. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which formulated inter-service plans, included the top brass of each service. The Joint Chiefs lacked a formal chairman initially, although later revisions to the law authorized one. In theory, all military affairs were supervised by the Pentagon – the headquarters for the Department of Defense, or DOD. With the former Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, retiring to private life, Forrestal became the nation's first Secretary of Defense.

  While underscoring the idea of “unification,” the National Security Act effectively enlarged the bureaucracies that assisted Forrestal. It authorized the National Security Council, or NSC, which coordinated the diplomatic and military policies of the executive branch. A successor to the wartime Office of Strategic Services, the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, gathered information abroad while coordinating intelligence activities. Governmental authorities assembled powerful mechanisms for national defense without achieving much clarity, firmness, or efficiency.

  A more unified administration strengthened aspects of national defense, but inter-service rivalries remained a critical weakness. The Navy defended its tactical air capabilities against budget reallocations, which seemed to favor the strategic bombing assets of the Air Force. Moreover, the Army's claims in regard to land-based missions ostensibly threatened the Marine Corps. Because Forrestal failed to achieve cooperation among the competing services, Truman abruptly asked him to resign after only 18 months on the job. On May 22, 1949, he committed suicide while in a state of mental depression.

  Truman turned to an aspiring political ally, Louis A. Johnson, as the next Secretary of Defense. Hoping to enhance the intercontinental capabilities of the Air Force, he approved funding for the acquisition of the new B-36 bombers in place of fighters and intermediate-range bombers. Furthermore, he cancelled funding for the 58,000-ton supercarrier, the United States, and reduced the active carrier forces and naval air groups. Fleet operations could not support heavy jets without a substantial refitting. With newspaper headlines announcing a “revolt of the admirals,” the Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan resigned from his civilian post.

  Congressional hearings followed, but the Navy failed to stop the reductions. General Omar Bradley, the newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs, denounced the Navy's apparent attempt to undermine civilian control over the military. Eventually, Johnson removed the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, who tried to discredit the B-36 program. In spite of grousing from the Navy Department, the Pentagon held the upper hand.

  The growing demand for non-combat personnel prompted the Pentagon to turn to women. With the support of senior military leaders, Congress began discussing passage of a bill for the re-entrance of females into commissioned service. During 1947, Captain Joy Bright Hancock of the WAVES testified in a Senate hearing about the role of women in the military. “It would appear to me that any national defense weapon known to be of value,” she asserted, “should be developed and kept in good working order and not allowed to rust or to be abolished.” Though General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz publicly endorsed legislation regarding “woman power,” congressional action stalled in the cloakrooms.

  Throughout the spring of 1948, Congress held additional public hearings on the permanent role of women in the military. The Retired Military Officers Association recommended flag rank for the directors of the women's corps, but the National Council for the Prevention of War opposed any measures that would “militarize women.” No member of Congress worked more tirelessly on behalf of legislation than Maine Representative Margaret Chase Smith, who also served in the Air Force Reserve. When the Women's Armed Services Integration Bill reached the floor, it promised opportunities for females to pursue military careers in fields such as nursing and administration. However, it precluded women from “having command authority over men.” After Congress finally passed it, Truman signed Public Law 625 on June 12, 1948.

  Given the prior service of African Americans in uniform, civil rights leaders urged Truman to push for the desegregation of the military. Rather than pursuing congressional legislation, though, he decided to use his inherent powers as commander-in-chief. On July 26, 1948, he issued Executive Order 9981. It declared that “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” Afterward, the first Secretary of the Army, Kenneth C. Royall, resigned in protest. Segregationists called Truman a communist for promulgating the order.

  To implement the order as rapidly as possible, Truman established the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. Chaired by jurist Charles Fahy, the seven-member advisory body examined the rules, procedures, and practices of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. During public hearings in 1949, the Fahy Committee compelled the military brass to discuss desegregation. That summer, the DOD approved the desegregation plans of both the Air Force and the Navy. However, the Army continued to drag its boots for several years. Eventually, manpower shortages forced it into full compliance. After delivering a final report during 1950, the Fahy Committee was disbanded by Truman.

  At the same time, a number of committees, commissions, and studies called for changes to the system of military justice. In early 1950, Congress approved the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ, which established a single set of regulations for all of the services. Once implemented, it protected the rights of individuals in uniform, restricted the influence of commanding officers, and curbed the instances of arbitrary discipline. By extending civilian concepts of jurisprudence to military affairs, it provided any accused service member with legally qualified counsel and recourse to appellate review. For example, a three-person, all-civilian Court of Military Appeals ultimately rendered judgment in most cases. With few revisions, the UCMJ provided the foundation for military law governing free speech as well as sexual behavior.

  To a great extent, Washington D.C. made the DOD responsible for military power. While driven by urgent demands to manage human resources, the recalibration of the war machine also reflected the national preoccupation with geopolitical imperatives. Militarization touched nearly every aspect of civil society in the U.S., but the readiness of the armed forces remained uncertain.

  Containment Strategy

  With the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund stabilizing overseas markets, many Americans wanted the United Nations, or UN, to ensure peace and security abroad. The international organization held its first meeting in 1946, although the UN General Assembly wielded little power. As the principal organ for making decisions, the UN Security Council initially included 11 members – five of them permanent and empowered with a veto. The U.S. submitted a plan to members for establishing multilateral oversight of nuclear weapons, but the Soviet Union balked. Bernard Baruch, the American propo­nent of the plan, worried that the former Allied nations were “in the midst of a cold war.”

  Soviet actions dashed American hopes for peaceful cooperation over a wide array of international issues. Holding dictatorial powers, Stalin pulled eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania into the Soviet's “sphere of influence.” While indirectly supporting rebel forces in Greece, the Kremlin
tried to intimidate Turkey into making territorial concessions. Whatever the impulse behind the aggressive moves, communist ideologues intended to promote revolutions worldwide. George Kennan, counselor of the U.S. embassy in the Soviet Union, sent a long telegram to Washington D.C. warning of relentless communist aggression. Therefore, he recommended “a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” The strategy of containment dovetailed with the views of Truman, whose closest advisors urged him to prepare for a “war on all fronts.”

  On March 12, 1947, Truman addressed Congress to request aid for Greece and Turkey. In addition to sending military personnel as advisors, he wanted to provide $400 million in direct assistance. “I believe,” the commander-in-chief announced, “that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.” Simply stated, the Truman Doctrine committed the nation to opposing the spread of communism in Europe primarily.

  Echoing the principles of the Truman Doctrine, Secretary of State George C. Marshall called for a robust effort to support European recovery. According to the Marshall Plan, all of war-torn Europe was eligible for billions of dollars in economic aid from the U.S. “Our policy,” Marshall posited in a Harvard commencement address, “is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.” Moscow disliked stipulations regarding free markets, denouncing them as an “imperialist” scheme. Nevertheless, the aid from the Marshall Plan drew the non-communist nations of Europe closer together. In contrast to the communist satellites under Soviet domination, they experienced economic growth and significant prosperity over the next several years.