World War II and the Battle to Preserve Humanity

Introduction: Defining the Real War

When attempting to discern what the "real war" was in a conflict involving as many international powers as those represented in World War II, it is tempting to examine the issue in terms of the goals sought by each side. For Hitler and the other Axis leaders, those goals were the implementation of fascist, totalitarian governments and the eventual conquest of the world. For Franklin Roosevelt and the other Allied leaders, the war was a means of preserving democracy and a free market. All of these ends are complicated by the economic value of the conflict for the participants involved, as well as by pressing social concerns related to genocide and a host of other evils. Yet when one examines the question of the war's true nature through first-hand sources — primarily those of combatants and other direct participants in military engagements — a different picture emerges.

World War II was easily the most devastating war of the 20th century, occurring at precisely the moment when new technology converged with the global aspirations of all participants involved. The deliberate carnage and destruction inflicted had a profound effect upon many of those who lived through it, regardless of which side ultimately prevailed. A thorough analysis of multiple first-hand accounts of the war makes clear that the true war was a daily battle to preserve one's humanity and morals under conditions that were anything but conducive to doing so.

The Battle for Humanity in the Pacific Theater

One of the principal texts that illuminates this aspect of World War II is E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed. Sledge's credentials for interpreting the nature of the real war are beyond dispute — he saw combat on numerous occasions with the 3rd Battalion, Fifth Marines of the First Division's mortar team in Okinawa. The location of his service is particularly important, as many U.S. combatants viewed Japanese soldiers as more evil and less human than their European Axis counterparts.¹

Sledge's memoir emphasizes three things: the inherent brutality and sheer magnitude of the violence rendered during the war, the intense camaraderie that such conditions fostered among American soldiers, and the confluence of both. It is this confluence that primarily concerns the present discussion, since it is in the merging of wanton violence and savagery with the intense loyalty and love soldiers felt for one another that the true nature of the conflict — the battle for one's humanity — is best seen.

Desensitization and the Loss of Moral Restraint

Sledge offers a number of examples in which the true war, for those actually fighting the battles, was the struggle to preserve their sense of morality and human nature. When one reads the many graphic scenes of violence he depicts — inadvertently digging ditches through human bodies, witnessing maggots ravage the remains of dead soldiers — it is not surprising that many soldiers became desensitized and lost all conception of right, wrong, and the conventional morality that constitutes a large part of what it means to be human. An excellent example of this aspect of the real war is found in the following passage, in which the author recounts a fairly common practice among American marines when encountering Japanese soldiers — cutting gold crowns from their mouths for personal monetary gain, an act that bears no intrinsic relationship to stopping fascism or any other stated objective of the war. Sledge recalls:

"Stopping beside a corpse with a particularly tempting number of crowns, I took out my kabar and bent over to make the extractions. A hand grasped me by the shoulder, and I straightened up to see who it was. 'What are you gonna do, Sledgehammer?' asked Doc Caswell. His expression was a mix of sadness and reproach as he looked intently at me… 'Don't do it.'"²

On one level, this quotation illustrates a young, opportunistic soldier taking time out from defending freedom to indulge in personal gain. However, pillaging, plundering, and disregarding any respect for the dead are all dangerous steps on the path toward inhumane treatment and an inhumane state of mind. Sledge was only going to engage in this behavior because so many of his peers were doing the same — committing acts that are beneath their character, beneath the standards of the U.S. armed forces, and that are a direct consequence of the brutality of war, which can easily override a man's humanity and conquer his soul. This conflict — between carrying out one's duty with one's morals and humanity intact, and surrendering to the barbarous effects of war that strip a person of both — is the "real war" in World War II.

The conditions soldiers had to endure were largely responsible for this conflict. They were taken to places far from home where, during combat, their only true objective was to stay alive — which frequently meant killing the enemy in the process. As a result, conventional virtues that civilians extol and attempt to exercise were wantonly disregarded by soldiers whose sole focus was the present moment and surviving it. This impetuous, brash thinking, though it may be of benefit on the battlefield, also threatens to strip a soldier of his humanity, often with disastrous consequences. For example, when U.S. soldiers learned that Japan had surrendered, "Every soldier just took a gun and started shooting… Thirty-two men out of our outfit were killed that night by stray celebrating bullets."³

Such an occurrence is nothing less than a travesty, and points directly to the real nature of the conflict present throughout World War II. It seems almost inconceivable that soldiers could endure all the horrors of the battlefield, triumph over their collective enemy, and then die at the trigger-happy, unrestrained hands of a comrade who had become so desensitized to the struggle between life and death that he could not stop himself from firing into the air. The men who pulled their guns and killed their comrades were the ultimate losers in the battle between the humane and inhumane that the war was truly about. They had lost their ability to distinguish appropriate behavior from inappropriate behavior, and had lost so much of themselves in the struggle for survival that they could not foresee any consequences for their actions or reason beyond the present moment.

Conclusion: Humanity as the True Battlefield

This sense of loyalty and love was the chief 'ammunition' in the real war within World War II. This was a war to maintain one's perspective, dignity, and values in circumstances and in an environment where one was constantly tempted to do otherwise. Such love and loyalty for one's comrades is what prompted Doc Caswell to stop Sledge from plundering gold from the mouths of dead soldiers. Perhaps more of this sentiment and rationale could have saved the lives of the 32 soldiers who were slain by their allies' frenzied, mob-like mentality after they had won the war.

Yet in World War II, such sentiment, rationale, and respect for human life and values was constantly clashing with scenes of brutal violence and a survive-at-all-costs mentality that exacted many, many payments. The first-hand accounts left by men like E.B. Sledge and those recorded by Studs Terkel make clear that for the combatants on the ground, the war's deepest meaning was not found in political ideology or strategic objectives, but in this daily, intimate struggle between the humane and the inhumane — a battle waged within each soldier's own conscience.

References

Sledge, E.B. With the Old Breed. New York: Presidio Press, 2007.

Terkel, Studs. The Good War. New York: The New Press, 1997.