898 CHAPTER 25 WORLD WAR II, 1941-1 94 5

TABLE 25.1 STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS INTHE UNITED STATES, 1940-45

YearNumber of

StrikesNumber of Workers

InvolvedNumber of Man­

Days IdlePercent of Total

Employed -1940 2,508 576,988 6,700 ,872 2.31941 4,288 2,362,620 23 ,047,556 8.41942 2,968 839,961 4,182 ,557 2.81943 3,752 1,981 ,279 13,500,529 6.91944 4,956 2,115,637 8,721 ,079 7.01945 4,750 3,467,000 38,025,000 12.2

Despite "no-strike" pledges, workers staged wildcat strikes in the war years. Union leaders negotiated shorterhours, higher wages , and seniority rules and helped to build union membership to a new height. When the warended, nearly 30 percent of all nonagricultural workers were union members.

"Work Stoppages Caused by Labo r-Management Dispute s in 1945," Monthly LaborReview, May 1946, p. 720; and Martin Glaberman, Will' TimeStrikes (Detroit: Bewick, L980), p. 36.

~rl-J-/-, ---, In this excerpt, Margarita SalazarMcSweyn, an employee in the defenseplants, recalls why she took ajobdrilling the wings of airplanes.

. . . the money was in defense. Everybody

would talk abou t the overtime and how

much more money it was. A nd it was

exciting. Being invo lved in that em you

figured you weredoing something

for your country - and at the sametime making mOlley. . . . It wasn 't

for the glamour. You weren't going

to meet all these guys; you would be

working jnimarily with women. . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .WJHIA'lr M A S0 R changes occu rred in

American society as a co nsequence of

wartime mobilizati on ?

• • • • • • • • • • •

Guideline 22.3

overwhelming majority-75 percent-of women workers expressed a desire tokeep working, preferably a t the same jobs.

Although 17 million new jobs were crea ted during the war, th e economicgains were n ot evenly distributed. Wages increased by as much as 50 percent butnever as fast as profits or prices. This widely reported disparity produced one of themost turbulent periods in American labor history (see Table 25.1). More workerswent on strike in 1941, before the United States entered the war, th an in any pre­vious year excep t 1919. A mil itant union drive at Ford Motor Company's enormousRiver Rouge plant made the United Auto Workers (UAW) one ofthe most power­ful labor organizations in the world. Total union m embership in creased from10.5 million to 14.7 million, with the women 's share alone rising from 11 to 23 percent.Unions also en ro lled 1,250 ,000 African Americans, twice the prewar number.

Once th e United States entered the war, the major unions dutifully agreed tono-strike pledges for its duration. Nevertheless, rank-and-file union members sporad­ically staged illegal "wildcat" strikes during the war. The most dramatic, a walkout ofmore than a half-million coal miners in 1943, led by the rambunctiousJohn L. Lewis,withstood the attacks of the government and the press. Roosevelt repeatedly orderedthe mines seized, only to find , as Lewis retorted, that coal could not be mined withbayonets. The Democratic majority in Con gress pas sed the first federal antistrikebill , giving the president power to penalize strikers, even to draft them. And yet thestrikes grew in size and number, reaching a level greater than in an y other four-yearperiod in American history.

THE HOME FRONT

Most Ameri can s thoroughly apprecia ted the burst of prosperity brought 00

by wartime production , but they al 0 ex perienced food ra tioning, longwo rkdays, aud se paration fro m loved one.. Alongs ide na tion al unity raO

deep conflicts on the home front. Racial and ethnic hostilities flar ed repeatedly andon several occas ions erupted in violenc e.

FAMILIES IN WARTIME

Despite the uncertainties of wartime, or perhaps because of them, men and womenrushed into marriage. The surge in personal income caused by the wartime economic

WORLD WAR II, 1941-1945 CHAPTER 25 899

boom meant that many young couples could afford to set up their own households­something their counterparts in the 1930s had not been able to do. As one social sci­entist remarked at the time, "Economic conditions were ripe for a rush to the altar."For other couples, the prospect of separation provided the incentive. The U.S. CensusBureau estimated that between 1940 and 1943, at least a million more people mar­ried than would have been expected had there been no war. The marriage rate sky­rocketed, peaking in 1946, but by 1946 the number of divorces also set records.

Housing shortages were acute, and rents were high. So scarce were apartmentsthat taxi drivers became, for an extra fee, up-to-the-minute guides to vacancies. Ableto set their own terms, landlords frequently discriminated against families with chil­dren and even more so against racial minorities.

Supplying a household was scarcely less difficult. Although retailers extendedtheir store hours into the evenings and weekends, shopping had to be squeezed inbetween long hours on the job. Extra planning was necessary for purchasinggovernment-rationed staples such as meat, cheese, sugar, milk, coffee, gasoline, andeven shoes. To free up commercially grown produce for the troops overseas, manyfamilies grew their own fruits and vegetables. In 1943, the peak year of VictoryGardens, three-fifths of the population were "growing their own," which amountedto a staggering 8 million tons of food that year.

Although the Office of Price Administration tried to prevent inflation andensure an equitable distribution of foodstuffs , many women found it nearly impos­sible to manage both a demanding job and a household. This dual responsibilitycontributed to high turnover and absentee rates in factories.

The care of small children became a major problem. Wartime employmentor military service often separated husbands and wives, leaving children in thehands of only one parent. But even when families stayed together, both adults oftenworked long hours, sometimes on different shifts. Although the War Manpower

Students at Officers' Training Schoolat Northwestern University, who were not

allowed to marry until they were commissioned

as ensigns, apply for marriage licenses

in Chicago, August 20, 1943, shortly before

graduation. These young couples helped

the marriage rate skyrocket during World War" .

© Betlmann/CORBIS.

./

I

(

goo CHAPTER 25 WORLD WAR II , 1941-194 5

Executive Order 9066 (1942)

Internment

Commission estimated that as many as 2 mi llion ch ild re n needed so me f01'1llchild care, federally funded day-care centers se rv d less th an 10 percent of d rcn~~workers' children. In most communities, th e limited facilities sponso red by indutry or municipal governments could not ke p lip with th e g row ing nu mh er of"latchkey" children .

Juvenile delinquency rose during the war. With employers often rel axing min­imum age requirements for employment, many teenagers quit school for th e highwages of factory jobs. Runaways drifted from city to city, finding temporary work atwartime plants or a t military installations. Gangs formed in major urban areas, lead_ing to brawling, prostitution, or automobil ' th efts for j oy rid es. Overall , how 'v r,

with so many young men either employed or serving in th e armed for ces, crime byjuven ile as well as adult males declined. In co n tras t, omplain ts agains t girls. mainlyfor sexual offenses or for runn in g away from hom " in creased sig n ifican lly. IIire sponse, local officials created various youth agencies and charged th em with devel­opin g m ore re creational and welfare programs. Meanwhile , local school boardsap pealed to employers to hire only older workers, and toward the end of the war thestudent dropout rate began to decline.

Public health improved greatly during the war. Forced to cut back on expen­ditures for medical care during the Great Depression, many Americans now spentlarge portions of their wartime paychecks on doctors, dentists, and prescriptiondrugs. But even more important were the medical benefits provided to th e morethan 16 million m en inducted into the armed forces and their dependents .Nationally, incidences of such communicable d iseases as typhoid fever, tuberculo­sis, and diphtheria dropped considerably, th e infant death rate fell by more thana third, and life expectancy increased by three years. The death rate in 1942, exclud­ing battle deaths , was th e lowest in the nation 's history. In the South and Southwest,however, racism and widespread poverty combined to halt or even reverse thesetrends. These regions co n tin ued to have th e highest infant and maternal mortal­ity rates in the nation.

THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERIC ANS

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, many Americans feared an invasion of the main­land and suspectedJapanese Am ericans of secret loyalty to an enemy government.On De cember 8, 1941, the federal government froze the financ ia l assets of thoseborn in J apan , kn own as Issei , who had been barred from U.S. citizenship.Meanwhile, in th e n ame of national defense , a coalition of politicians, patrioticorganizations, business groups, and military officials called for the removal of allAmericans of J apanese descent from Pacific coasta l areas. Although a StateDepartment intelligence report certified th eir lo yalty, Japanese Americans­two-thirds of whom were American-born citizens-became the only ethnic groupsingle d out for legal sanctions.

Charges of sedition masked long-standing racial prejudices. The press be gan to

use the word "[ap" in headlines, while political ca rtoon ists employed blatant racialstereotypes. Popular songs appeared with titles like "You 're a Sap , MisterJap, to Makea Yankee Cranky." "The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date," an armyreport suggested, with twisted logic, "is a disturbing and confirming indication thataction will be taken."

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066,which in effect authorized the ex clusion of more than 112,00 0J apanese Am ericanmen, women, and children fro m design ated military areas, mainly in California,

Guidelines 22.4and 22.5

In thi s excerp t, from Exe cutiveOrder 9066, President Franklin D.Roosevelt formally authorizesthe inte rn me n t ofJapanese Americansfrom design ated militar y areas.

.. . by vir tue oj the au.thority vested in me

as President oJ the United Stat es . . . pre­

scribe mil itary areas in such pla ces and

ojsucb extent as he or the appmpriate

Military Commander may determine,

[rom which any or all persons may be

excluded, and with respect to which,

the right oj any person to enter; remain

in, or leave shall be subject to whatever

restrictions the Secretary oj War or

the appropriate M ilitmy Commander

ma)' impose in his discretion.

~UI-I-/-/ ---

December 8, 1941: Finan cial assetsof Issei frozen.

Februar y 19, 1942: Civil rights ofJapaneseAmericans suspended and 112,000 peoplerelocated to internment camps.

1944: Supreme Cour t upheldconstitu tionality of relocation .

QUICK REVIEW

Issei The first generation ofJapanese tocome to America, starting in th e late 1800s.

• • • • • • • • • • •

WORLD WAR II , 1941-1945 CHAPTER 25 901

Photri-Microstock, Inc.

- I I:... PJ IIr­- -- ' / ,11

A. Philip Randolph, Why Should WeMarch? (1942)

vve drove past a barbed-wirefence, througha gate, and intoan open space . . . Afterdinnerwewere taken toBlock 16, a clusteroffifteen barracks that hadjust been fin­ished a dayorsoI'mli"r-fllthough finishedwashardly thewordfor it. Theshacks werebuiltofonethickness ofpineplanking cov­ered with tarpape: They sat on concretefootings, withabout twofeetofopen spacebetween thefloorboards and theground. . . .

In this excerpt,Jeanne Wakatsukireminiscences of her arrival andthe conditions in Manzanar, aninternment camp located inthe desert of southern California,where she and ten thousand otherJapanese Americans spentthe duration of the war.

More than 110,000Japanese Americans wereinterned during World War II, somefor up to four years. This photograph, takenby Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), the famedphotographer of Depression Era migrant families,shows the Mochida family in May 1942 waitingfor a busthat will takethemto a relocation camp.

By August, virtually every west coast resident who had at least one Japanesegrandparent had been interned.

TheJapanese American Citizens League charged that "racial animosity" ratherthan military necessity had dictated the internment policy. Despite the protest of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union and several church groups against the abridgmentof the civil rights ofJapanese Americans, the Supreme Court in Korematsu v. United

States (1944) upheld the constitutionality of relocation on grounds of nationalsecurity. By this time a program of gradual release was in place, although the lastcenter, at Tule Lake, California, did not close until March 1946. In protest, nearly6,000Japanese Americans renounced their U.S. citizenship. Japanese Americans hadlost homes and businesses valued at $500 million in what many historians judge asbeing the worst violation of American civil liberties during the war. Not until 1988did the U.S. Congress vote reparations of $20,000 and a public apology to each of the60,000 surviving victims.

"DODBLE V": VICTORY AT HOME AND ABROAD

Throughout the war, African American activists conducted a "Double V" campaign,mobilizing not only for Allied victory but for their own rights as citizens. "The armyis about to take me to fight for democracy," one Detroit resident said, "but I wouldas leave fight for democra cy righ t here." mack militants demanded, at a minimum,fail' ho using and equal employme n t opportunities.

Even before the United States entered the war, A. Philip Randolph, presidentor bO lh the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Nationa l Negro Congress,had begun to mobilize against discrimination. At a planning meeting in Chicago, ablack woman proposed se nd ing African Americans to Washington , D.C., "fro m all

but also in Oregon, Washington, and southern Arizona. The armyprepared for forced evacuation , rounding up and removingJapanese Americans from the communities where they had livedand worked, sometimes for generations.

During the spring of 1942, Japanese American familiesreceived one week's notice to close up their businesses and homes.Told to bring only what they could carry, they were then trans­ported to one of the ten internment camps managed by the WarRelocation Authority. The guarded camps were located as far awayas Arkansas, although the majority had been set up in the remotedesert areas of Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, andCalifornia. Karl G. Yoneda described his quarters at Manzanar innorthern California:

There were no lights, stoves, or window panes. My twocousins and I, together with seven others, werecrowded into a 25 X 30 foot room. We slept on armycots with our clothes on. The next morning wediscovered that there were no toilets or washrooms....We saw GIs manning machine guns in the watchtowers.The barbed wire fence which surrounded the campwas visible against the background of the snow-coveredSierra mountain range. "So this is the American-styleconcentration camp," someone remarked.

902 CHAPTER 25 WORLD WAR II, 194 1- 19 45

This painting is by Horace Pippin, a self-taught

African American artist who began paint ing as

therapy for an injury suffered whi le serving

with the U.S. Army's 36 9th Colored Infantry

Regiment during World War I. It is one of a series

drawn during World War II illustrating the contra­

diction between the principles of liberty and jus­

tice, for which Americans were fighting abroad,

and the reality of race prejudice at home.

Horace Pippin (1888-1 94 61, Mr. Prejudice, 1943. Oil on canvas,

18 x 14 inches. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Or. and Mrs.

Matthew T. Moore. Photo by Graydon Wood (1984-108-1).

Guideline 22.2

ove r th e co untr y, in jalo pies , ill train s, and an ' way th ey can ~ .t ther •until w · ge t some ac tio n [1'0111 tIH.~ Wh ite Ho use." African Am'ri .

I ... I' " II " f a ilsacros s t I C co un tr IJcgan to prepare or a grea t ra y 0 no less thall100,000 peopl e to be held a tthe Lincoln Mem ori al a ll the Fou rth of /l l

. I YEager to top th e March 0 11 Wash ington moveme n t, Prcsidc l1 ;

Roosevelt met with Randolph. who proposed a n exe ut ive o rdcr "111ak.ing it mandatory that Negroes be p ermitted to work in [d efen se]plants." Randolph reviewed severa l drafts before approvin g th e textthat bec am e, onJune 25,1941 , Executive Order 8802, banning dis­crimination in defense industries and government. The presiden t laterappointed a Fair Employment Pr actices Committee to hear complaintsand to redress grievances. Randolph calIed off the march but remaineddetermined to "shake up white America."

Othe r civil rights organizations form ed during wartime to fightboth di scrimination and Jim Crow practices, including segregati on inthe U.S. a rmed forces. The interracial Congress of Racial Equality(CO RE) , formed by pacifists in 1942, staged sit-ins at Chicago, Detroit,and Denver restaurants that re fused to serve African Am ericans. Inseveral cities, CORE used nonviolen t means to chalIenge racial segre­gation in public facilities . Meanwhile, membership in th e Nation alAssocia tion for the Advan cem ent of Co lo red People (NAACP) , whichtook a strong stan d against di scriminati on in defense plants and in themilitary, grew from 50,000 in 1940 to 450,000 in 1946.

The tough est struggles again st discrimination took pla ce, however,in local communities. Approxim ately 1.2 million African Ameri cans had

left the rural South to take jobs in wartime industries, an d they faced not onlyseri­ous housing sho rtages but whites intent on keeping th em out of the best j obs andneighborhoods. For example, "ha te strikes" broke out in defense plants across thecoun try when African Americans were hired or up graded to positions customarilyheldby white workers. In 1942, 20,000 white workers at th e Packard Motor Car Companyin Detroit walked out to protest the promotion of three black workers. One yearlater, at a nearby U.S. Rubber Company fact ory, more than half the white workerswalked out when Afr ican American women began to operate the machinery.

Detroit was also the site of bloody race riots. In February 1942, when twenty blackfamilies attempted to move into new federalIy funded ap artments adjacent to a PolishAmerican community, a mob of700 armed white protesters halted the moving vans andburned a cross on the project' s grounds. Two mo nths later, 1,750 city poli ce and statetroopers supervised th e move of these families into th e Sojourner Truth HousingProject, named afte r th e famous abolitionist and for mer slave. The folIowin g summer,racial violence reach ed its wartime peak. Twenty-five blacks and nine whi tes were killedand more th an 700 were injured. By the time the 6,000 fed eral troops restored order,property losses top ped $2 million. One writer rep orted: "I th ought that I had witnessedan experience pecu liar to th e Deep South. On th e streets of Detroit I saw again thesame horrible exhibition of uninhibited hate as they fough t and killed one another­white agains t black-in a frenzy of homicid al mania, withou t rh yme or reason."

During the summe r of 1943, more than 270 racial conflicts occurred in nearly fiftycities . The poet Langston Hughes, who supported U.S. involvement in the war, wro te:

Loohy here, A merica

What you done done­

Let things drift

Until the riots come

WORLD WAR II , 1941-1945 CHAPTER 25 903

Yet you say we'refighting

For democracy.

Then why don't democracy

Include me?

I ask you this question

Cause I want to know

How long I got to fight

BOTH HITLER-ANDJIM CROW

ZOOT-SUIT RIOTS

On the night ofJune 4, 1943, sailors poured into nearly 200 cars and taxis to drivethrough the streets of East Los Angeles in search of Mexican Americans dressed inzoot suits . The sailors assaulted their victims at random, even chasing one youth intoa movie theater and stripping him of his clothes while the audience cheered. Riotsbroke out and continued for five days.

Two communities had collided, with tragic results. The sailors had only recentlybeen uprooted from their hometowns and regrouped under the strict discipline ofboot camp. Now stationed in southern California while awaiting departure overseas,they came face-to-face with Mexican American teenagers wearing long-draped coats,pegged pants, pocket watches with oversized chains, and big floppy hats. To thesailors , the zoot suit was notjust a flamboyant fashion. Unlike the uniform the youngsailors wore, the zoot suit signaled defiance and a lack of patriotism.

Th e zoot-suiters, however, represented less than 10 percent of their community'syouth. More than 300,000 Mexican Americans were serving in the armed forces (anumber representing a greater proportion of their draft-age population than otherAmericans), and they served in the most hazardous branches, the paratrooper andmarine corps. Many others were employed in war industries in Los Angeles, whichhad become home to the largest community of Mexican Americans in the nation. Forthe first time Mexican Americans were finding well-paying jobs, and, like AfricanAmericans, they expected their government to protect them from discrimination.

Military and civilian authorities eventually contained th e zoot-suit riots by rul­ing several sections ofLos Angeles off-limits to military personnel, and the city coun­cil passed legislation making the wearing of a zoot suit in public a criminal offense.Many Mexican Americans expressed concern about their personal safety; some fearedthat, after the government rounded up the Japanese, they would be the next groupsent to internment camps.

POPULAR CULTURE AND "THE GOOD WAR"

Global events shaped the lives of American civilians but appeared to touch themonly indirectly in their everyday activities. Food shortages, long hours in the facto­ries, and even fears for loved ones abroad did not take away all the pleasures of fullemployment and prosperity. With money in their pockets, Americans spent freely atvacation resorts, country clubs , racetracks, nightclubs, dance halls, and movie theaters.Sales of books skyrocketed, and spectator sports attracted huge audiences.

Popular music seemed to bridge the growing racial divisions of the neighbor­hood and the work place. Transplanted southern musicians, black and white, broughttheir regional styles to northern cities. Played onjukeboxes in bars, bus stations, andcafes, "coun try" and "rhythm & blues" not only won over new audiences but alsoinspired musicians themselves to cross old boundaries. Musicians of the war years"made them steel guitars cry and whine," Ray Charles recalled. They also paved theway musically for the emergence of rock and roll a decade later.

In this excerpt, A. Philip Randolphreiterates the African Americandetermination for equality andequal citizenship.

The March on Washington M ouement is

essentially a movement of the people. It is

all N egro and Pm-Nt'lilTJ. but notfor that

reason anti-white or anti-Semitic, or ant i­

Catholic, or antif orrign, or anti-lab an . . .

"Whether Negroes should march on

Washington, and if so, when ?" will be

the focus of a forthcoming national

conf erence. . . . No power on earth can

cause them today to abandon their fight

to wipe out every vestige of second class

citizenship and the dual standards that

plague them.

904 CHAPTER 25 WORLD WAR II, 1941-1945

Many popular songs featured war th e mes, Pe rso nal se n timent meshed with gernment directive to depict a "good war," j us tifying massiv sacriJic , T he war ""1 .o \'o

b h d bl '1'1 I " "A R . I ' 1; toe seen as a wort yan even no e cause. i e p a rn uve a m l OW a t Mid night" b .country singer Ernest Tubb expressed the hope of"a com mo n "dogfacc' soldier 10 k-o ..ing beyond the misery and horror to the p ro mise ora bri ghte r to morrow. "Till The n "recorded by the Mills Brothers, a harmonious black q ua rte t, offered th e prospecl~f

a romantic reunion when "the world will be free." T he era 's best-kn own tu nc , lr vinBerlin's "White Christmas," evoked a lyrica l nostalgia of past celebra tio ns with fa ll~ily and friends close by. On the lighter side, novelty artist SpikeJones made his namewith the "razz" or "Bronx cheer," in "We're Going to Ffft in the Fuehrer's Face."

Meanwhile, Hollywood artists threw themselves into a perpetual round offundraising and morale-boosting public events. Movie stars called on fans to buywar bonds and to support the troops. Combat films such as Action in the North

Atlantic made heroes of ordinary Americans under fire, depicting GIs of differentraces and ethnicities discovering their common humanity. Movies with antifascistthemes, such as Tender Comrade, promoted friendship among Russians and

Americans, while films like Since You Went Away portrayed the loyalty and resilienceof families with servicemen stationed overseas.

The wartime spirit also infected the juvenile world of comics. The climbingsales of nickel "books" spawned a proliferation of patriotic superheroes such as theGreen Lantern and Captain Marvel. Even Bugs Bunny put on a uniform and foughtsinister-looking enemies.

Fashion designers did their part. Padded shoulders and straight lines becamepopular for both men and women. Patriotic Americans, such as civil defense volun­teers and Red Cross workers, fancied uniforms, and women employed in defense

plants wore pants, often for the first time. Restrictions on materials also influencedfashion. Production of nylon stockings was halted because the material was neededfor parachutes; women's skirts were shortened, while the War Production Boardencouraged cuffless "Victory Suits" for men. Executive Order M-217 restricted the col­

ors of shoes manufactured during the war to "black, white, navy blue, and threeshades of brown."

Never to see a single battle, safeguarded by two oceans, many Americans never­theless experienced the war years as the most intense of their entire lives. Popular

music, Hollywood movies, radio programs, and advertisements-all screened by theOffice ofWar Information-encouraged a sense of personal involvement in a collec­tive effort to preserve democracy at home and to save the world from fascism. No onewas excluded, no action considered insignificant. Even casual conversation came

under the purview of the government, which warned that "Loose Lips Sink Ships."

. . . . . . . . . . .HOW DliD the war affect the lives

of American women?

• • • • • • • • • • •

MEN AND WOMEN IN UNIFORM

JD) uring World War I, American sold iers served for a relatively brief p~~iodand in small numbers. A quart e r-century later, World War II mobIlIZed

16.4 million Americans into the armed forces. Although only 34 percentof men who served in the army saw combat-the majority during the final year of thewar-the experience had a powerful impact on nearly everyone. Whether workingin the steno pool at Great Lakes Naval Training Center in northern Illinois or slog­

ging through mud with rifle in hand in the Philippines, many men and women saw

their lives reshaped in unpredictable ways. For those who survived, the war oftenproved to be the defining experience of their lives.

WORLD WAR II, 1941-1945

CREATING THE ARMED FORCES

Before the European war broke out in 1939, the majority of the 200,000 men in theU.S. armed forces were employed as military police, engaged in tasks such as patrollingthe Mexican border or occupying colonial possessions such as the Philippines.Neither the Army nor the Navy was prepared for the scale of combat World War IIentailed. Only the U.S. Marine Corps, which had been planning since the 1920s towrest control of the western Pacific from Japan, was poised to fight.

On October 16, 1940, National Registration Day, all men between the ages oftwenty-one and thirty-six were legally obligated to register for military service. Afterthe United States entered the war, the draft age was lowered to eighteen, and localboards were instructed to choose first from the youngest.

One-third of the men examined by the Selective Service were rejected. Surprisingnumbers were refused induction because they were physically unfit for military service.For the first time, men were screened for "neuropsychiatric disorders or emotionalproblems," and approximately 1.6 million were rejected on this reason. At a timewhen only one American in four graduated from high school, induction centersturned away many conscripts because they were functionally illiterate. But those whopassed the screening tests joined the best-educated army in history: nearly half ofwhite draftees had graduated from high school and 10 percent had attended college.

The officer corps, whose top-ranking members were from the Command andGeneral Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, tended to be highly professional, politi­cally conservative, and personally autocratic. General Douglas MacArthur, supremecommander in the Pacific theater, was said to admire the discipline of the Germanarmy and to disparage political democracy. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, however,supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, projected a new and contrast­ing spirit. Distrusted by MacArthur and many of the older brass, Eisenhower appearedto his troops a model of leadership.

The democratic rhetoric of the war and the sudden massive expansion of thearmed forces contributed to this transformation of the officer corps. A shortage ofofficers during World War I had prompted a huge expansion of the Reserve OfficerTraining Corps, but it still could not meet the demand for trained officers. Racingto make up for the deficiency, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall opened schoolsfor officer candidates. In 1942, in seventeen-week training periods, these schoolsproduced more than 54,000 platoon leaders. Closer in sensibility to the civilian pop­Ulation, these new officers were the kind of leaders Eisenhower sought.

Most GIs (short for "government issue"), who were the vast majority of draftees,had limited contact with officers at the higher levels and instead forged bonds withtheir company commanders and men within their own combat units. "EveryoneWants someone to look up to when he's scared," one GI explained. Most of all, sol­diers depended on the solidarity of the group and the loyal ty of their buddies to pullthem through the war. Proud to serve in "the best-dressed, best-fed, best-equippedarmy in the world," the majority of these citizen-soldiers wanted foremost "to get thetask done" and return soon to their families and communities.

CHAPTER 25 905

WOMEN ENTER THE MILITARY

With the approach of World War II, Massachusetts Republican Congresswoman EdithNourse Rogers proposed legislation for the formation of a women's corps. The army~nstead drafted its own bill, which both Rogers and Eleanor Roosevelt supported, creat­Illg ill May 1942 the Women 's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) , later changed to Women'sAnlly Corps (WAC). In 1942-43, other bills established a women 's division of the nax

(WAVES), the Wom en 's Airlorce Service Pilots, and the Marine Corps Women's Reserve .

Guideline 22.3

906 CHAPTER 25 WORLD WAR II, 1941-1945

QUICK REVIEW

WACS and WAVES

, 1942-1943: Women's divisions of allmajor armed services created.

Women barred from combat, but notfrom danger.

. WACS and WAVESviewed with suspicionand hostility by many male soldiers.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Overall, more than 350.000 women se rved in Wadel War II , twu-th irds Of tllern

in th e WACS and WAVES. As a gro up. th ey were better educated and more skillcd__altho ug h paid less-than th e average sold ier, However, military policy pmhibi'te

r . . I k . If dwomen rom supervu;mg ma c wor .ers, even Il'l a Ices.Altho ugh barred fro m com ba t. women were not necessaril y pro tected fro

I . d I . 1. ' Af I I nl( ange r. urs es acc o mpal1le th e troops into co m bat III rrca, ta y, and Francetreated men under fir e . and dug and lived in the ir OWII fo xh ol es. Mo re tha ,~

1,000 wom en new planes, a ltho ug h no t in com ba t mi ssions. Others workcd aph otographers and cry p to a na lysts, T he vast majo rity rc ma incd fa r from battle_fronts, however, stationed mainly within the United States, where they served inadministration, communications, clerical, or health-care facilities.

The WACS and WAVES were both subject to hostile commentary and bad pub­licity. The overwhelming majority of soldiers believed that most WACS were prosti­tutes, and the War Department itself, fearing "immorality" among women in thearmed forces, closely monitored their conduct and established much stricter rUlesfor women than for men. The U.S. Marine Corps even used intelligence officers toferret out suspected lesbians or women who showed "homosexual tendencies" (asopposed to homosexual acts), both causes for dishonorable discharge.

-'''CHE(;K I NQ'STATION

OLD PRACTICES AND NEW HORIZONS

The Selective Service Act, in response to the demands of African American leaders,specified that "there shall be no discrimination against any person on account ofrace or color." The draft brought hundreds of thousands of young black men intothe army, and African Americans enlisted at a rate 60 percent above their proportionof the general population. By 1944 black soldiers represented 10 percent of thearmy's troops, and overall approximately 1 million African Americans served in thearmed forces during World War II. The army, however, channeled black recruits intosegregated, poorly equipped units, which were commanded by white officers. SecretaryofWar Henry Stimson refused to challenge this policy, saying that the army could notoperate effectively as "a sociological laboratory." The majority served in the Signal,

Engineer, and Quartermaster Corps, mainly inconstruction or stevedore work. Only toward theend of the war, when the shortage of infantryneared a crisis, were African Americans permittedto rise to combat status. The all-black 761st TankBattalion, the first African American unit in com­bat, won a Medal of Honor after 183 days inaction. And despite the very small number ofAfrican Americans admitted to the Air Force, the99th Pursuit Squadron earned high marks inaction against the feared German air force, theLuftwaffe. Even the Marine Corps and the CoastGuard agreed to end their historic exclusion ofAfrican Americans, although they recruited andpromoted only a small number.

The ordinary black soldier, sailor, or marineexperienced few benefits from the late-in-the-war

gains of a few. They encountered discriminationever ywhere, from the army canteen to the reli­gio ns cha pel s. Even the blood banks kept bloodsegregated by race (although a black physician,

Guideline 22.4

National Archives and Records Administration.

New recruits tothe Women's Army Corps (WAC)

pick up their clothing "issue" (allotment).

These volunteers served in many capacities,

from nursing men in combat to performing

clerical and communication duties "stateside"(within the United States), Approximately

140,000 women served in the WACS during

World War II.