•5 million volunteers
•Selective Service Act
added 5 million more
•G.I. – “Government
Issue” - first applied to
uniforms, weapons,
equipment; to the
soldiers
WAVE Radio
Operator
John Falter
Women’s
Auxiliary Army
Corps (WAAC)
Women's Auxiliary
Ferrying Squadron
(WAFs)
Less pay, rank and benefits than men
250,000 served
Los Angeles – 1/10th of city’s
population but suffered 1/5th
of city’s casualties
Post war, many veterans used
the G.I. Bill to earn a college
education.
•Segregated units: mostly noncombat roles
•Upon receiving a draft notice --- “Just carve on my tombstone,
‘Here lies a black man killed
fighting a yellow man for the
protection of a white man.’”
•More than a million served
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, U.S. Third Army commander, pins the Silver
Star on Private Ernest A. Jenkins of New York City for his conspicuous
gallantry in the liberation of Chateaudun, France. October 13,
33,000 in uniform
13,000 joined; one of every five living here
Served as interpreters throughout the war.
Some spies were discovered.
Radio Intercept Section, 6th AAF Radio Squadron Mobile 10th AAF, CBI Theater, September 1944.
L-R:Teiho Chena,Ted Tdukiyama,Tom Goto, and Mark Akisada
•25,000
•Opportunity to leave reservation and
meet non-Indians
“We would not
need the
Selective
Service Act if
all volunteered
like the
Indians.”
1. Mechanical pencils – bomb parts
2. Bedspread manufacturer – mosquito netting
and explosives
3. Soft drink manufacturer – filled shells with
explosives
4. Liberty ships built in four days by industrialist
Henry J. Kaiser
5. Henry Ford – jeeps, trucks, tanks (last civilian car
’42 Pontiac)
-
Rosie is provided by Curtis Publishing. Permission Requested.
Women
a. 6 out of 18 million workers
b. Earned 60% of a man’s
salary
c. 2 million minorities
African-Americans
- mostly menial jobs
Roosevelt’s executive
order – “To provide
for the full and
equitable
participation of all
workers without
racial discrimination.”
a.
Pesticides (DDT) – insects and lice
As a pesticide, DDT was first used during WWII. It
was so effective as an insect killer that some called it
the "atomic bomb" of pesticides.
After WWII, the U.S.
realized that DDT could
also be used on farms to
control some common
agricultural pests.
b.
Atomic bomb – Manhattan Project
Developed by American scientists, the first atomic
bomb was detonated at the Trinity test site near
Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The test
convinced the United States government that such
weapons were viable in warfare.
c.
Penicillin
The technique to
produce large
amounts of penicillin
was perfected by an
American drug
company. This
technique allowed the
Allies to produce
enough penicillin to
aide throughout the
war.
A magazine ad for penicillin during WWII
d.
Blood bank
In 1938, Dr. Charles Drew, a leading
authority on mass transfusion and
blood processing methods, set up a
blood plasma system.
In September 1945, the
American Red Cross had
collected over 13 million
units of blood and
converted nearly all of it
into plasma.
An American medic administers plasma to a wounded soldier. NARA
a. Propaganda films –
Frank Capra’s “Why
We Fight” series
b. Public tired of propaganda; switched to musicals,
romance, comedies for an escape
d. USO shows
Bob Hope and his
USO group in
Guadalcanal.
e. Celebrities –
1.
Jimmy Stewart and
Stan Musial held up
their careers to serve
2.
John Wayne booed
by Marines on a USO
tour for not serving
A. Japanese internment
B. Office of Price Administration (OPA)
1. Froze prices, rents and wages to curb
inflation
2. Rationing – foods such as meat, sugar
(needed for explosives), butter, cheese,
coffee, and vegetables
C. War Productions Board (WPB)
1.
Rationing fuel and materials vital to
the war such as nylon, gas, oil, metals,
rubber and plastic
2.
Decided what companies would
convert and allocated raw materials
3.
Organization of scrap drives – iron, tin
cans, paper, rags, cooking fat
a. School children
b. Boy Scouts
D. Department of the Treasury
1.War bonds
2. $18.75 at purchase
3. Bonds were worth $25 in ten years
E.
Limits on the right to strike
F.
1.
2.
National War Labor Board (NWLB)
Limited wages
Workers could not change unions
G. Office of War Information
The armed forces’ demand for textiles
led to shortages of wool and rayon, causing
fashion changes at home. The WPB banned
ruffles, pleats, and patch pockets, favoring
the single-breasted, vestless “victory suit”
over the baggy “zoot suit” in vogue at the
time. To conserve silk, women painted
seams up the backs of their legs to make it
seem as if they were wearing stockings.
When professional
baseball players like
Joe DiMaggio and
Ted Williams
traded in their
baseball cleats for
combat boots,
women’s teams got
a chance to keep up
the country’s
morale in the
game.