U.S. History During the Dedication

U.S. History

During the dedication ceremonies of the National World War II Memorial, U.S. President George W. Bush remarked on how American unity and resolve and the leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt steered the course and outcome of the War in those days of hardship and uncertainty. At the time, even the most radical critics felt that democracy then had ended and that free institutions must give way to severe doctrines and discipline of a regimented society. The whole world waited for its liberators but liberation required the sustained commitment and effort of an entire nation. At the start of World War II and just getting over a decade of economic depression, the U.S. was neither rich nor great. It ranked only 17th in the list of countries with the largest armies in the world. Its people needed to work, save, ration and sacrifice. Two out of three citizens contributed money to war bonds. To them, it was a people's war and they were in it, as Col Oveta Clup Hobby described. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, concentration camps, heaps of bodies and ghastly-looking survivors called forth America to move in and oppose the ideologies of death. It gained strength from its people who worked for victory, cared for the wounded and wore the uniform to fight. In the spirit of unity, America put its ships in every ocean and armies in the five continents. These massive actions were under the direction of President Roosevelt whose resolve stood stronger than the will of any dictator. He had absolute belief in democracy and expressed this to Americans with optimism to encourage to them to do their task. Dictators and their generals viewed Americans as no match for them but President Roosevelt's response was in the fighting might of General Douglas MacArthur and his men, the pilots and the marines. More than 16 million Americans fought in that War with a single commitment. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guardsmen and merchant maries came from city streets and prairie towns, public high schools and West Point. They fought bravely and kept their honor under the worst conditions of war. They were not all warriors by nature or temper. They were there for a job they had to finish before heading home. They were sons and daughters of a peaceful country who gave the best years of their lives to the greatest mission they ever accepted. They faced the worst kinds of danger, which took the lives of more than 400,000 of them who left widows and orphans behind in order to respond to their task. In the eyes of the American people, they saved their country and the liberty of mankind.

A collection of 70 stories from saboteurs, spies, traitors, thieves and code-breakers offers another view of their effect on World War II through a wide range of complicated plots and other dramatic events and activities. The first story was that of a Japanese tailor who stole the U.S. State Department's grey code from the U.S. consulate in Kobe. It was later changed to trick the Japanese. The U.S. Office of Censorship opened letters, inspected cable messages, eavesdropped on telephone calls and scrutinized movies, reading materials and radio programs. It has the cooperation of all media. These stories were accounts of secret events, which would be unacceptable even to Hollywood film producers. Yet they were real and influenced the direction and outcome of the War.

How America powered its economy during the War through a unifying framework enabled it to influence the course and direction of the War. This framework was characterized by the maturity of its economic resources, the size of its federal government, the character of its military, and its relationship to civilian authority, and the state of military technology. The maturity of each factor and the interaction among them determined the nature of mobilization and the war-time economy. The government agencies created to coordinate mobilization and production efforts were the National Defense Advisory Commission from 1939-1941, the Office of Production Management and the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board in 1941, and the War Production Board from 1942-1945. The relationships in and among government bureaus, military agencies, private corporations and non-governmental interest groups were vital in implementing plans drawn from the framework.

Insights that can be drawn from the effectiveness of this framework on the economy of America also pointed to the extent of its influence in the outcome of World War II. First, it meant that the success of modern, large-scale warfare highly depended on the ability to plan, build and convert capacity, reallocate resources, to mass-produce standardized high-quality output, and coordinate material and product flows through an efficient supply chain. Second, the key to efficiency was not centralized coordination but the revitalization and reallocation of resources. Third, special interest groups would vie for influence in large-scale political-economic institutions. Moreover, the elites in the contemporary United States wielded power in commercial, political and military institutions in the last 70 or more years. There were similar and robust struggle among elites and interest groups in Eastern Europe, Russia and China at the time. Mobilization for World War II happened when the U.S. economy was quite self-sufficient in the 1930s when global gross domestic product went to its lowest levels in the past 150 years.

Before and into World War II itself, the United States pursued German nationals to eliminate all perceived Nazi threat from the hemisphere but also German economic interests so U.S. businesses could take their place. While German Chancellor Adolf Hitler considered every German expatriate to be a spokesperson for and a supporter of Nazi policies, this was not shared by the United States. Washington, instead, viewed every German expatriate in Latin America as a potential or real Nazi saboteur, spy or propagandist who extended financial support to the Third Reich, if he was wealthy. On account of an alleged linkage beginning in 1942, the U.S. deported many such expatriates to Germany or interned them in camps set up throughout the country. Military intelligence officials and FBI agents were to Latin American countries who were aided by local informants on the FBI payroll. Most of the Germans in the U.S. were exchanged for the release of U.S. citizens within Nazi-occupied war zones, while others were repatriated. These would demonstrate U.S. military might and clout during the War.

Tactical aviation was another important aspect in America's influence in the outcome of World War II. While soldiers and sailors contended with space and surface movement, flyers fought wars without these limitations. Airpower was more informed and more versatile than other combat arms. It could manage ground and sea operations. Anglo-American airmen in World War II exhibited the inclination to orchestrate air power among services and between nations. Allies Great Britain and the U.S. shared a common and strong purpose and view of aviation during that War. They fused their different air forces and to de-mark the sky on functional, rather than geographic or national, lines. Today, adaptability in war, flexibility and versatility all the more describe airpower. Elasticity, however, was shown not to be intrinsic to airpower as evidenced by the history of tactical operations in that War. Nonetheless, it remains one of aviation's best capabilities.

The media was another potent instrument during that War. Winning modern war depends a lot on transmitting domestic and international public views and opinions as well as defeating the enemy in the battlefield. This has been the case no matter how much some journalists would like to present unbiased positions in the press. The experience of the U.S. military in the Cold War proved that success was defined in political, rather than, military terms. This was why military commanders gained much from controlling the media and determining their information. International laws and conventions of war do not recognize or appreciate the important role played by the media in shaping the political outcomes of wars and other conflicts. They recognize members of the media as civilians who have rights. But the United States maintains the view and treatment of the media as non-combatants. It does not consider it a legitimate target even if it is used for propaganda purposes.

The significance of the media during conflicts, involving Western militaries, draws from the need for information operations. This is why winning the media war has been a priority to Western war-planners and why varying methods to win it have been devised. It was not what information was given to the media but the control of the flow of information, which mattered. The control of disseminated information was what maximized the military and political advantage of the U.S. forces. Lying outright to the media happened but the commander who respected the media would also use it to directly affect the enemy and his plans. There is a U.S. army manual, which lists the military advantages, which can be gained by manipulating the media. It defines military deception as a fundamental instrument of military art, aimed at deceiving enemies about friendly force dispositions, capabilities, vulnerabilities and intentions. It would construct a credible, but false, situation to deceive or lead the target to act in a manner, which would accomplish the commander's goal. When the target accepted the deception, the commander determined the means or methods needed to present the events. The manual demonstrated the mechanism of "Conditioning an Adversary" through the case of the Egyptian crossing the Suez in 1973. It consisted that deceptive measures and a broad range of centrally-directed and controlled deception events, involving political and military activities. Whether the objective was to control the public and elite view of a conflict or for purposes of military deception, the U.S. military had keen interest in media's perception of events in the battlefield. If the media was present and undermined the political strategy, it needed to be controlled. But if it were non-neutral, there was greater need to control it. Whether it behaved impartially or not, members of the media deserved to be treated as civilians. If they were not impartial, the most probable option would be to target those media members militarily, but it depended on whether they made accurate judgment about what they were partial about and their motives behind making the judgment.