America's Last Real Home Front

AMERICA'S LAST HOME FRONT

Can We Ever Mobilize Our Citizens Again?

By Carroll Paul Trosclair

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Carroll Paul Trosclair

All rights reserved.

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DEDICATION

Dedicated to the defense workers, housewives, senior citizens and children who contributed in their individual ways to the Allied victories in World War II, many of whom also lost relatives and friends.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

—My parents, Maurice and Iris Trosclair, who struggled financially and emotionally to get me through the war years;

—My first wife, the late Genevieve Negrotto Trosclair, who inspired the book;

—My second wife, Betty Brooks Trosclair, who encouraged me to complete it and took on the tedious job of proofing it;

—George Ritter and The Rev. Lloyd Reimherr, who grew up with me during World War II, who served their country during the Korean War, who have remained close friends for more than 70 years and who shared some of their memories for this book;

—Catherine Haws, for her manuscript advice and counsel;

—The World War II Museum in New Orleans for its preservation of World War II memories;

—America in WWII Magazine, a periodic reminder of what the war was like, home and abroad.

THE COVER: A closeup version of the famous World War II Rosie the Riveter poster that focused on women’s new We Can Do It role in the war. From a copy belonging to the National Museum of American History in the Smithsonian Institution and Wikimedia Commons.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. FDR: The inspiration behind the Home Front

Chapter 3. From isolation to war

Chapter 4. The war media

Chapter 5. Stars in the windows

Chapter 6. The war machine

Chapter 7. The women, bless 'em

Chapter 8. The draft, deferments and dodgers

Chapter 9. Kids and education

Chapter 10. The minorities

Chapter 11. Nationality issues

Chapter 12. Shortages, rationing & prices

Chapter 13. Security and blackouts

Chapter 14. Getting around town and country

Chapter 15. Entertainment and sports

Chapter 16. Korea, Vietnam and Iraq

Chapter 17. The World War II Museum

Chapter 18. The WWII Home Front Legacy

Chapter 19. The author

Chapter 20 Appendix: References and Sources

1. INTRODUCTION

Few Americans are still around who experienced the World War II years when our nation was united, both abroad and at home, in a global battle for democracy. Today, there are reasons to question whether we can ever generate that level of unity again and if we will ever be able to mount the kind of Home Front which was essential to victory in World War II and which could be crucial in a future global war.

Let me emphasize that this is not a call to arms. Hopefully, we will never again have to mount the kind of effort on either the front lines or home front that we did in World War II. The question, instead, is whether the American people will ever again have the appetite and the courage for such commitment and sacrifice. It is a difficult question to answer, far beyond the depth of today's political and consumer polling because most Americans have no memory or appreciation of that war. The answer can have a huge impact on our foreign policy and our future role in international relations. Enemies have questioned our citizen commitment in the past. They will continue to do so at every step on the road to any future war.

We are rapidly losing the people who put together the WWII miracle effort. Tom Brokaw called it The Greatest Generation, with good reason. They demonstrated determination, sacrifice and unity perhaps never before seen in our history. Or seen since.

The number of those who experienced WWWII both at home and abroad has been decimated by the millions who died during the war and by the deaths that have followed in the ensuing decades, many from effects of the war. When New Orleans dedicated its D-Day Museum in 2000, actor Tom Hanks pointed out that about 1,000 World War II veterans were dying every day. In 2008, museum historian Martin Morgan said that daily toll was increasing and that he expected all of the 15 million WWII veterans to be gone by 2020. We must assume that most of the Home Front workers will be gone by that time or shortly after that.

Fortunately, the military aspects of the war have been extensively documented in print, in photographs, in film and even in tape, video and audio. The exploits, the horrors, the sacrifices, the startling statistics and the heroics are all carefully preserved for ages of mankind to recall. The military lessons are cemented in history, but without any guarantee that we will learn from them.

The inhumanities committed by Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, General Hidecki Tojo and their gangs are well captured for generations to study. Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglass MacArthur, George Patton and the other Allied generals and admirals are well portrayed as political, military and diplomatic models for the future.

Although there are good books on the amazing 1941-45 Home Front that the United States built and maintained the story of that effort during the war is far less documented than is the military history. Unfortunately, there also have been attempts to rewrite the history of that period and to diminish the achievements of the Home Front.

The WWII Home Front is defined here as the civilian operation, guided in large part by the Roosevelt Administration, to support the war effort against the Axis. Some people might change the word guided to manipulated. But in many respects the Home Front was undertaken spontaneously by the American people.

For sheer suffering, the American Home Front did not compare with the heroics of the bomb-scarred British citizenry. Few nations have experienced such continuing punishment and survived to win as the British did. They demonstrated far more than the stiff upper lip with which they are stereotyped. They exhibited courage, stamina, patience and a tremendous will to endure.

We Lost 405,399

In 1996 the editors of TIME-LIFE Books ridiculed the American WWII Home Front, saying: At home, aside from sending sons and husbands off to fight and producing vast quantities of material, the war effort was mainly trivia: watching for enemy planes that never came; rationing meat, sugar and gas; trying to make do with a scarcity of hairpins and glass eyes.

If they had written that about the home Front in any of America's last five wars, I would agree. But the editor or editors who wrote that were either not around during WWII or had short memories of what the war was to the people at home.

Most Americans changed their lives in some manner to support the war effort. True, living standards went up from 1939 to 1943, but the Great Depression had dragged them down to near rock bottom in 1939. That higher standard of living during WWII was created primarily by defense plant and shipyard employees making more money by working long hours six and seven days per week.

Of course we did not just send sons and husbands off to war. We also watched brothers, fathers and teachers go. Thousands of American women, mostly sisters and daughters, also served, and some did not return. Volunteers watched not only for enemy planes, but also for enemy submarines that wanted to (and did) land spies on the Atlantic coast.

Also, the government rationed a long list of everyday items, not just meat, sugar and gasoline. As the American Red Cross reported, 6.6 million donors gave 13.4 million units of blood during the war, no small contribution. WWII Americans accepted higher taxes to pay for the war, without threatening another Boston tea party. They also bought billions of dollars of war stamps and bonds.

The American people survived the shocking bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and they experienced their share of mental anguish from nearly four years of war in both the Pacific and European theaters. They did not just send sons and husbands off to fight; they suffered through the loss of 405,399 loved men and women and the wounding of another 671,846.

The commitment and achievements of the Home Front earned the American citizenry of that era a high place in history. However, as indicated by the TIME-LIFE comments, that role was being downgraded as early as 1996 and at least some of its lessons seem to have nearly been forgotten.

World War II was, for all intents and purposes, the last war in which most Americans actually participated. It was also the last war in which all Americans were asked to sacrifice and in which most did, to varying degrees.

It is perhaps more than a coincidence that the subsequent lack of total participation and sacrifice has paralleled our failures, frustrations and embarrassments in more recent wars and so-called police actions.

In our new reliance on high-tech military weapons, we have lost the total commitment and involvement of the American people. Late 20th Century and early 21st Century wars have become something in which we arm and send a relatively small number of our young people to conduct high technology military missions on foreign soils.

We send them away to clash with people we neither know nor understand, in swamps, mountains, deserts, and crowded cities. Meanwhile, most of us proceed with our daily lives and ambitions.

We console our consciences by displaying flags and ribbons, delivering and applauding empty speeches and reciting slogans of support for our troops. Some Americans profited handsomely from the fighting, a seemingly unavoidable slimy side-effect of most wars.

Profiteers, Hoarders, Dodgers & Slackers

Such shallow and less-than-noble behavior is, of course, not unprecedented. We certainly had our share of it even during World War II. We had war profiteers, hoarders, draft-evaders and slackers. But their numbers were relatively small and their behaviors were severely frowned upon, not as accepted as they are today.

Subsequent administrations have used many of the same media and motivational techniques used in World War II. But they have not galvanized the people as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, for several reasons.

First, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and several years of unapologetic German and Italian aggression in Europe left little doubt about either the worthiness or the urgency of the war effort.

Second, by the end of WWII, the American people were tired of war and over the years became more cynical about the need for war.

Third, and perhaps most important, since the post WWII administrations have relied mostly on the same propaganda tools that we, our allies and our enemies perfected during that war, the American people have grown immune to some of it.

Propaganda, incidentally, is not used here as a dirty word. I grew up hearing the Roman Catholic Church talking, as it had for centuries, about the propagation of the faith. In its simplest form, propaganda is the act of putting out your best message to achieve a specific purpose. These days, we’re more likely to call it spin. It gets dirty when you stray from the truth and try to control other communications channels, which is what the Axis excelled at and which the Roosevelt Administration flirted with most of the war.

Wartime propaganda usually calls for specific actions, even major sacrifices for the people at home. Even in World War I, the Wilson Administration encouraged Americans to go without certain foods. The program was run by Herbert Hoover, whom Wilson had named to head of the U.S. Food Administration. To make sure soldiers had enough foods, Hoover established Meatless Mondays and Wheatless Wednesdays to preserve those foods. The Roosevelt Administration expanded on those programs in WWII.

But there were no calls for major sacrifices during the Korea or Vietnam wars, nor during the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We have requested less of the American people.These recent wars have been waged without a military draft, without real shortages, without rationing or price controls, without blackouts or war bond sales, without something specific for Americans to do or contribute to the war effort. For most Americans, the recent wars remained distant battles against unknown people. Except for those with loved ones actually fighting those wars, the events in those far away places never get much closer than the evening news.

After the bombing of the World Trade Centers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, President Bush’s basic message to the American people was to get back to their normal way of life. In an address to a joint session of Congress and to the American people via television nine days after the attacks, Bush vowed to defeat the terrorists.

Bush's speech was 3,014 words long, compared to Roosevelt’s six minute address to Congress and the nation December 8, 1941. Bush spoke of all the steps the government would take. He thanked Americansfor what you have already done and for what you will do. But his call for help from the American people was vague and the assignments were passive. He said:

The thousands of FBI agents who are now at work in this investigation may need your cooperation, and I ask you to give it. I ask for your patience, with the delays and inconveniences that may accompany tighter security; and for your patience in what will be a long struggle. I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy.

It was not much of a call to arms for what he described as a potentially long, international war. His emphasis on continued participation in the economy matched his image as a big-business president. Some critics interpreted it as a call to go out and shop.

What Else to Do?

Realistically, there may have been nothing more for us to do in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, except perhaps pay more