Mobilizing for Victory

Organizing the Economy The war effort gave Americans a common purpose that softened the divisions of region, class, and national origin while calling attention to continuing inequalities of race. War Manpower Commission: allocated workers among vital industries and the military War Production Board: invested $17 billion for new factories, $181 billion in war supply contracts

Organizing the Economy Office of Price Administration (OPA) – fought inflation with price controls and rationing of vital war materials. This convinced Americans to buy war bonds that financed half the war spending Federal budget grew to $98 billion by 1945 and increased the national debt

Organizing the Economy Major industries transitioned from producing consumer goods to building war machines These mass production techniques used to build thousands of warplanes and tanks War-boom cities: developed due to war production (e.g. San Diego)

The Enlistment of Science Office of Scientific Research and Development: Vannevar Bush guided spending on research and development which set the pattern of massive federal support for science that continued after the war. Manhattan Project: U.S. program to develop an atomic bomb

The Enlistment of Science Physicist Robert Oppenheimer directed the project to design a nuclear fission bomb at Los Alamos 1st nuclear explosion on July 16,1945 – Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico Oppenheimer “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds”

Men & Women in the Military By 1945, 8.3 million men and women were on active duty in the army and army air forces and 3.4 million in the Navy & Marine Corps. Total 350,000 women / 16 million men served: 292,000 killed / 100,000 prisoners / 671,000 wounded 25,000 Native Americans served (racially integrated forces) Code talkers – Navajo Indians who’s language was unknown to the Axis powers

African Americans Approximately 1 million served in the armed services during the war Served in segregated (separate from white soldiers) units – usually in in non-combat, menial jobs Faced discrimination on and off the base All black units (761st tank battalion & 99th pursuit squadron) earned distinguished records for combat action. The war experience helped to invigorate postwar efforts to achieve equal rights.

Japanese Americans Japanese Americans, unfairly suspected of being possible traitors, in Hawaii and on the west coast are rounded up and shipped to internment camps. Despite severe prejudice back home, the 442nd Infantry Regiment becomes the highest decorated infantry regiment in the history of the U.S. Army 8 Presidential Unit Citations 21 Medal of Honor winners

Women in the military Received mixed reactions by Americans Armed services tried to not change established gender roles (primarily worked in clerical jobs) Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) – civilian auxiliary of U.S. Army Air Forces Women pilots ferried military aircraft across the U.S., towed targets for anti-aircraft target practice, tested new planes.